Cuesta del Rey

After having Mike Snowden with me for a couple of weeks, I decided to make some guitars in the same sort of way he does...and this is one of them. I'd not made any neck-thru' builds for ages, and there were a few other points I decided to revisit after looking at how Mike builds his guitars..and I must admit I've been really pleased with the results.There's no gap between the neckstick and the top of the guitar, and the it's surprisingly loud acoustically despite this. I went with a machine screw at the nut, carefully installed for correct intonation and low action...so much easier than faffing around cutting, polishing and slotting a bone nut!I also glued on a contrasting section from the heel thru' to the tailstock, and caved it into a neat "spearpoint " pattern..reflected on the headstock and tailstock.The revelation was the pickup...I tried Mike's method and it was hopeless for me...I got no volume at all out of it...messed around with repositioning the pickup, but no joy. So I decided to try making a floating bridge with a piezo built into it. It was a fiddle making the bridge with a slot to take the pickup and the bone saddle...but the results were a revelation. Plugged in it's loud (WAY louder than any of my magnetic pickup guitars) and gives a wonderful warm, clean acoustic sound. Putting some overdrive onto the amp also sounds great, no feeedback, squealing nastyness. After making some 450+ guitars I'm delighted to have found some new ideas and ways of doing things...there's always something new to learn.
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Comments

  • I see. Makes sense adding strength with the heel and laminate. Thank you.
  • Cutting the neckstick where it goes through the box makes it relatively weak, so adding a lamination from the heel to the string anchor point puts a lot of stiffness back, so resuts in no undue bending, a stiffer neck and  more sustain.

  • Just curious what's the purpose of a heel with a neck all the way through design?.. This looks fantastic and I'm sure sounds great as well.
  • To make the bridge I laminated it, with a thin centre section to suit the width of the pickup + a bit of tolerance. It was a bit of a fiddle, but since then I've made a batch of them, just planing down a few strips of mahogany and chopping them to size. You could route the slot, but I'm not tooled-up to do that, and also I like the fact that laminating it ensures a totally flat bottom to the slot, providing that you clean the glue-squeeze-out from the slot before it dries.

  • Chickenbone, nice guitar. I love the simple design and bigness. Warm colors and good workmanship. Thanks for the endorsement of the rod piezo. I'll have to try that sometime. I love my old Teisco pups though as well as flatpups and JuJu and Crocker handmades. I've had very good luck with them.

  • I have been wanting to do a rod piezo build too. How did you make the groove in the bridge? Love the build too. That spearpoint is great...

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