Overview of the project

So ever since high school, I've wanted to build a guitar from scratch. In my mind, that's always been the most kick-ass instrument. Back then my dream axe was a sunburst Fender Strat with a rosewood fretboard, white pickups, chrome hardware. I always though those looked amazing and was in love with the idea of having 5 different pickup positions. So many different tone combinations! Well, I still love strats and a couple years ago threw together the Carvin bolt kit. I got the one with a humbucker in the bridge and a hard tail. I feel like tremolos kill a lot of sustain and I play like a tornado in a trailer park. If I really want to dive a note, I just grab the neck and bend the whole thing. The best part about that is it makes everyone cringe. C'mon guys, that's what the truss rod is for! I also have a Jackson Kelly that came out of my metal phase I went through in college. Course I had to put an EMG 81 and 85 in (these are for sale now, if anyone wants 'em, drop me a line - $75 for both). After college, I started drifting away from all the crazy effects and super hot amps and got back to basics. Tubes, baby, tubes. The sound coming out of the Jackson wasn't turning me on anymore, so last year that went through a complete rebuild. I stripped all the paint, bought a compressor and spray gun, put a real nice blue burst on it, and put Duncan EVO2 and Alnico Pro pickups in it. It's closer, but still doesn't match the sound I really want out of it. I think I might have to route it and install a couple tone knobs. Eh, we'll save that for a while. Right now it's a shred machine with a ridiculously fast neck.

So let's move on to my current playing style. A couple years ago I thought it would be a fine idea to build my own amp. I wanted something with tubes because tubes are sexy. I also wanted relatively low output so I could crank it and it would sound good in church / living room. I stumbled across the best site ever - AX84 - which is a community of super-geeks who have worked up their own schematic for a 5-10 watt single ended tube amp. I built the Little Sahara Sidewinder here from the High Octane circuit. The cabinet's all my own design, with 8" and 10" Jensen speakers. Figure that combo out! It gives it a lot of high end and mid range punch and makes it a KILLER lead amp. It's also single channel and extremely simple which suits my playing style. I don't do well with channel switching. I usually leave the amp almost completely cranked and use the volume and tone knobs on the guitar to dial in the sound I want. I feel this gives the greatest ability to dial in whatever level of crunch you want whenever you want it, and a cranked tube amp has a wonderful level of sensitivity to how hard you hit the strings that can really only be appreciated by playing through one. BTW, that's my Carvin bolt kit. You bet your ass I did the paint job, that's a rattle can special done on my porch in the dead of winter. Would I ever do another rattle can 'burst job? Hell no, that's too much like work. Now that I have decent paint equipment, it's all spray gun for me. Besides, the quality of paint is exponentially higher with a lacquer that you mix up vs. a rattle can which has all kinds of nasty preservatives in it to give it good shelf life. The long and short is that a rattle can job never cures anywhere near the level of hardness that you get out of a spray gun and it will always be soft and prone to scratching.

Enough of all that. The newest axe to enter my household will be my dream guitar incorporating all the design features I want. I've got that beautiful '81 Takamine acoustic finished in wine red up there that I feel needs a partner. (I love that guitar because it was made the same year as me). So the new axe (Little Sahara Sunset) will have the same mojo in the finish - transparent wine red over flamed maple with figured pearl block inlays and gold hardware. I'm going all out on the hardware, gold sperzel or schaller tuning machines (3L/3R). Gold tonepro tune-o-matic bridge and string through body ferrules. Gold volume / tone knobs, gold pickup covers w/ either 2 Seymour '59s or a '59 and JBL in the bridge, haven't decided yet. The electronics will be Les Paul style 2 volume, 2 tone, but each of these will also have a push/pull pot. pulling one set will tap the coils for a single coil sound and pulling the other set will switch from series to parallel wiring. I feel this adds a HUGE range of sounds on but at the same time the LP controls are completely manageable and not overwhelming.

The body and headstock design are all my own. These were spawned from hours and hours with a beer and a set of french curves. All design work is done as Jesus intended - pencil and paper. None of this CAD hooey. Actually, I can't say that, CAD is awesome, but sometimes my designs come out much better when I can feel them. Don't know why... This will also be a 24 fret neck through body design because I love the transition on neck through guitars and they feel rock solid. The neck is laminated from 5 pieces of wood, 2 maple, 2 walnut, 1 oak. Beautiful. The top of the headstock and body are bookmatched flamed maple. The body's top will be lovingly hand carved. Did I miss anything? Oh yeah, 2 way adjustable truss rod. Basically, I'm not skimping on any hardware and taking what I love from everything I've ever played and combining it.

So let's get to work...