Inspired by Gretsch, Gibson, Guild.... you name it.
In early 2005 I discovered (on ebay of course) some old unfinished Gretsch tops and backs, left over from when the Booneville Arkansas factory shut down in 1981. They were raw, uncut laminates made for a 17" body such as the Country Club or Country Gentleman. They were oversized and of course didn't have any holes, etc. I bought a couple of them just on a whim to make a clock out of a guitar top. Then once I got them I thought about making sides for them and fitting a bolt on neck. Soon I found an unfinished Gretsch replica neck, which I found out had been built by a luthier named Billy Connolly. Bily worked for Kramer in the 1980s and also built guitars of his own under the Falcon brand name. I don't know anything about how this neck came to be, whether he was in the process of making a replacement neck for a customer or a custom guitar, but he passed away before it was finished. I bought the neck from his widow.
I've been rebuilding guitars for many years, but I've never bent my own sides before. I built a bending iron from a propane torch and a piece of pipe. I bought some 0.160" thick maple and had it thickness sanded down to 0.095". I soaked them for a half hour in a piece of 4" PVC pipe and went at it. It was a lot easier than I had ever imagined. Don't get me wrong, it's not EASY, it's just not the horror story I had envisioned. I had already built a 17" mold, complete with a removable cutaway section in case the cutaway proved to be too difficult I could make it a regular non-cutaway guitar.
Once shaped, I clamped the sides into the mold and a few days later added the kerfing and reinforcement strips, headblock and tailblock.
Here's a couple shots of the neck, still in a somewhat raw state.
March 25, 2005 - I routed the headblock so I could "dry fit" the neck, just to see any problems ahead of time.
April 21, 2005 - Here's a shot of the bracing. Kind of a hybrid style. The pickups are Dearmond style that don't require as much routing as a regular humbucker so I was able to go with regular parallel bracing. However because of the shallow neck angle I may not be able to use a standard wooden based tune-o-matic, so I am planning ahead for a stud mounted Schaller roller bridge, and I built a support block for it.
Both f-holes are done and bound, I just need to do some final cleanup. I used scrap binding melted in acetone for glue.
Here's a few shots taken May 13:
November 2005....Here's the finished guitar:
I made the pickguard and truss rod cover from scrap Indian Rosewood and bound them. The pickguard is quite thick and is held in place with two screws that also go down through the pickup mounting rings, so there are no extra holes visible, and no need for another bracket on the side.
The tuners are gold Grovers. The pickups are GFS, the bridge newer Gretsch, the tailpiece is generic Gibson style, and the knobs are NOS Gretsch from the 70s.
Update!
DISASTER struck in late 2006 when I went to adjust the truss rod and discovered the truss rod did NOT work! The nut just spun and spun.....
So I decided to go back and do the neck over. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, right? So off came the old board, and I made my OWN truss rod this time! I then installed an ebony board and inlaid it with block pearl inlays. Fretted it of course, re-bound it, all that. I also refinished the neck and part of the body, painted the inserts in the pickups black, and installed a rudely expensive Gretsch Bigsby.
