SurfPick and The Fool (sounds like a good title for a new TV series)!
We've only made these four solidbodies so far, and need to sell the first one, which is in process, to get the money we need to take the next step.
We've got an endorsement from a highly-regarded local player (Jason Drabek) who currently is in Denver working on a recording project his band (Sweatin' Like Nixon) just signed onto. When he returns we plan to use him in a testimonial presentation to some regional players. If some sales result from that introduction, we're off and running. If not, I'll retire to Key West and make picks out of the leftover cocobolo!
We don't plan to make hollowbody guitars, as that requires a totally different skills set that we just don't have the time to acquire.
SurfPick, yeah I'd love to try to work that Leadwood! We actually had to give up on our intention of capping the prototype with the cocobolo as it was too hard for us to shape. I never mentioned the cost of the equipment required to fabricate a solid body instrument out of these dense woods. Even router bits and plainer blades are expensive enough to be a factor.
One of our planned laminates incorporates ebony as the revealed layer where you see maple in the prototype. With caps of cocobolo, an absolutely incredible wood with gorgeous contrasting grain colors, or bloodwood, that would be beautiful. The ebony takes on a tremendous glow when finished with 600 grit and beyond, looking almost like a molded plastic, but with a texture and depth that clearly is not.
The Fool, I understand how you could spend what you did on customizing an existing guitar, but we shopped as wisely for components as possible, and wound up with great results, as I am sure you did also.
Tuners are excellent PlanetWaves locking/trimmers with an 18:1 ratio.
Bridge is Schaller fine tuning and is perfect in design and mass, looking great and working accordingly. Very kind on strings too, with its well made saddles.
Pickups are Seymour Duncan Jazz, JB, and Pearly Gates, with 59s and Alnico IIs planned for coming models.
Concentric volume/tone and 5 position 4-pole SuperSwitch along with on-on-on minis are all premium quality. There is an additional cost for the black finish we chose, but the appearance justifies it.
Molded metal pickup rings and Electrosocket surface mounted output jack are additional premium touches.
Every routed surface related to the pickups and controls is double coated with shielding paint, terminating in contact tabs for controls and rings.
All wiring is .090 coaxial cable. So, all added together, this is one quiet guitar. When compared with my Strat in my noisy neighborhood, the Piranha is almost dead quiet in its single coil modes, and absolutely dead quiet in series/parallel/and phase-reversed.
The ebony fingerboards combined with the v-shaped neck profile make these instruments real players. Our next two guitars will have two different fret wire sizes on their 24 fret fingerboards which should result in better playability in the second octave. Still, these guitars are fast!
Again, with the density of these woods and the non-damping oil finish, the timbre and sustain are phenomenal. I can hit a note, take off the guitar and set it down, go out of the room and come back, and it's still audibly ringing!
Sorry to run on here, but I thought that some of this might be interesting and useful, especially in light of the discussion in this thread. These topics, and many othes, have been thoroughly covered in the Usenet guitar making group.
It's also nice to know for people trying to wring the most out of their current equipment and willing to do a little customizing. That Epi sounds like a prime example of this.
Frank
