Wood purchased:
- Neck Blank: Birdseye maple AAA, Size: 780mm x 100mm x 25mm
- Fretboard: Rosewood – 24.75″ scale (precisely and not the “Gibson” 24.75″)
- Body Blank: Swamp ash: Single Piece: 490mm x 370mm x 45mm
- Body Top: Birdseye maple: 5-7mm thick (not enough for a carve once squared up)
As this will be my first glued top guitar, I didn’t want to spend a huge amount of money on the “deep” top I would normally need. PRS I’m told use a 28.5mm back piece with a 20.5mm maple cap – that isn’t cheap! I couldn’t find a maple fretboard that would look as special as the neck wood, so I’ve gone for the contrast of a really nice piece of rosewood. If I cut my own fret slots, I’d maybe try the MusicMan style of slicing the fretboard off the neck, but that’s brave! At this thickness of maple cap (~5mm), I doubt the maple will have any impact on the sound.
So out with the carve, in with the rosewood fretboard. Body shape is going to be the same outline, but 10mm bigger all around. I will start the neck first, with my normal spoke end trussrod. This time I’m going to use Schaller Locking M6, as I just didn’t get on the Nylon Schaller’s I used on the last build (hence upping the body size to keep balance).
New Concept (no idea what colour I’m going now) – using the actual wood. Not sure how a birdseye top will look after it dyed:
With a quick Photoshop mockup (aside: I really need to figure out a better way of “dying” wood in Photoshop)
