I travel a fair amount, internationally and within the US, to give talks on my various projects. I like to take a guitar along and for the past couple of
years; I've even managed to get gigs in cities where I speak. Schlepping a guitar is always a challenge and CITES, the Endangered Species and, and the
Lacey Act have made international travel rather complex. So, I decided that a travel guitar that disassembles would b a great convenience. Alas, I wanted one
that looked good, sounded good, and played well. None of the commercial offerings seemed to meet all three criteria. So, I bought a chunk of mahogany and
started whittling away. Here's what I have, so far:
Update: Now fully assembled and working nicely. Nut is 1 13/16 and string spacing at saddle is 2 5/16. Neck carve to my hand's liking. Before I tale the electronics, do the final sanding and finishing, I took a couple of pics:
I decided to add in touches that honor my favorite vintage guitars. So, here's a scrap of repro Larson purfling (the guitar "body" is a tracing, with cutaway, of a Larson Maurer 451):
Here's my nod to Gibson, confounded by a bit more of that Larson purfling:
As of July 1, 2009, the ESA and Lacey Act require declarations of all plant and animal material contained in anything you carry across the border. To simplify my declaration, I used only two species of wood (and kept receipts for my purchases of scraps of both): mahogany and EIR. I even bound the fretboard with scraps of mahogany:
I know of about a dozen seizures of guitars over the past year or so because they contained an animal part: shell. So, I used turquoise stone for position markers on the sides of the fretboard:
I still need to rout the back of the guitar to create cavities for the wring of the pickup, volume control, and output jack. And, I've got at least 1,000 hours of sanding left to do. But, other than the finish (Kim Walker is going to give me a small can of his secret varnish --- really); I'll have it ready to travel to the UK next week.
You can see the build process here
Update: Now fully assembled and working nicely. Nut is 1 13/16 and string spacing at saddle is 2 5/16. Neck carve to my hand's liking. Before I tale the electronics, do the final sanding and finishing, I took a couple of pics:
I decided to add in touches that honor my favorite vintage guitars. So, here's a scrap of repro Larson purfling (the guitar "body" is a tracing, with cutaway, of a Larson Maurer 451):
Here's my nod to Gibson, confounded by a bit more of that Larson purfling:
As of July 1, 2009, the ESA and Lacey Act require declarations of all plant and animal material contained in anything you carry across the border. To simplify my declaration, I used only two species of wood (and kept receipts for my purchases of scraps of both): mahogany and EIR. I even bound the fretboard with scraps of mahogany:
I know of about a dozen seizures of guitars over the past year or so because they contained an animal part: shell. So, I used turquoise stone for position markers on the sides of the fretboard:
I still need to rout the back of the guitar to create cavities for the wring of the pickup, volume control, and output jack. And, I've got at least 1,000 hours of sanding left to do. But, other than the finish (Kim Walker is going to give me a small can of his secret varnish --- really); I'll have it ready to travel to the UK next week.
You can see the build process here
