dB2 AMX. Swamp ash body, quartersawn maple neck, ziricote fretboard.

The neck has a piece of swamp ash grafted on at the scarf joint for the headstock.

The ziricote fretboard has some beautiful “landscape” figuring in it, including some radiating lines along one edge that make it look like a sun setting behind rolling hills.

This Javelin was the second 1-piece body cut from the slab of figured mahogany. It has a light coat of polymerized tung oil on it to seal it, but also to see how the grain would pop. WOW!

We picked up a piece of roasted flamed maple, big enough to do at least one multi-laminate neck, fretboard and headstock. Roasting the maple in an autoclave at high pressure and in a near vacuum changes the cellular structure of the wood, making it nearly impervious to moisture, but without changing its fundamental strength or tonal properties.

The board is flat-sawn, so we’ll be ripping it down into smaller pieces that will be flipped on their edge and laminated together to make a strong and stable neck. The figure goes right through the board, and should be stunning. Roasted maple varies in colour from a golden honey tone all the way to a deep chocolate brown. The colour goes all the way through the wood.

The “flame sandwich”. Originally planned as the neck for Prototype 3, i opted to use it on this guitar instead. Five laminates… three flamed roasted maple, with two figured mahogany stringers.

The neck blank glued up.

Mmm… flamey.

dB1 Javelin. The first “production” Decibel Guitar. Figured mahogany body, 5-piece roasted curly maple + figured mahogany multi-laminate neck. Roasted curly maple fretboard.

The roasted maple goes a bit more brown when finish is applied. I may apply a little bit of brown stain to the body to bring the tones more in line with each other.

The fretboard is going to look pretty stunning.

Laid out.

L-R: dB1 Javelin, dB2 AMX, dB3 AMX

dB1 Javelin body freshly popped out of the jig.

Pickup selector and master volume control well out of the way. There will be a flush-mounted momentary kill switch button situated in between the two recesses.

The control cavity and recess for the cover have been routed.

The neck has been cut down from 27" scale to 25.5" as per Misha’s request. The truss rod channel just needs to be made a little longer, which will be done with a steady hand and a sharp chisel.

There’s still a bit of PVA glue residue from where the bodies had to be attached to the jig for the CNC. This will all come off in sanding. Amazingly, the two mahogany stripes on the neck are lighter in colour than the three roasted curly maple laminates!

The neck-to-body joint is tight enough that there’s sufficient friction to allow the body’s weight to be held up by just neck press-fitting the neck into the pocket. No glue or fastneners are holding the two together at this point.

Some dye tests, sanded back and oiled. L-R Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Van Dyke Brown, Black.

L-R: No dye, Burnt Sienna, Van Dyke Brown, Black on a piece of the curly mahogany from the body offcuts.

The back of the same offcut with no dye and one coat of polymerized tung oil sealer. I’m leaning towards just leaving it au naturel.

Bolted up to test fit, with the kill switch in place.

Kill switch detail. I installed it with the optional rubber O-ring under the bezel, which i think i’ll remove for the final installation. You can see the machine marks that still need to be sanded out. This will happen after i’ve done the carving on the back.

Body beauty shot.

A close-up of the neck fastening system that will be used on all Decibel bolt-on instruments. These are 1/4″-20 T-nuts embedded in the neck.

Interior shot of the control cavity showing the kill switch installed on an angle, flush with the curved top.

Neck heel with the bolts deeply recessed. They’re drilled out to 1/2″ thickness on the neck heel and 1/2″ thickness on the neck. Because the neck is being held by the threads on the bolts and the steel inserts, there’s no concern over threads tearing out of the wood. The neck is being held on with more compression force than you’d likely be able to get with screws in wood alone.

Beauty shot.

The Golden Hour.

The fretboard needs some fine sanding to bring back the figure. Wavy grain = crazy figure. The 16" to 20" compound radius and the fret slots were cut on CNC. The slots end short of the edges to give a "pseudo-bound" look. The solid edges also likely make the fretboard a bit stiffer.

Rough contours carved on the back. The ridge on the neck heel will blend into the asymmetrical soft V on the upper part of the neck.

Sanding will smooth things out and blend some of the edges and curves together in a more organic way.

The front of the guitar is meant to look clean and precise, like a surgical instrument. The back is more organic, with lines and organic curves suggesting structure under a fluid skin.

The first shot of dye rubbed into the figured mahogany body. Sort of a "mocha espresso" brown. Left to dry overnight.

The back is as wild as the front. More even distribution of figure, but not as extreme as the front.

Mocha sanded back and a coat of amber applied, sanded back again and then a thin coat of shellac sealer. The final colour will be something i’m likely going to describe as “Mocha Gold”.

The depth and figure will only get deeper and more complex as i apply layers of tung oil and then a beeswax polish.

This is what a roasted curly maple fretboard looks like with a thin coat of sealer on it. Zowie!

And this is the back of the neck. Maple-mahogany-maple-mahogany-maple.

Unbelievable figure on the body.

Unbelievable flame on the neck.

Note that the fret slots do not extend all the way to the edges of the fretboard! This board was radiused (16" to 20" compound radius) and slotted on a CNC for hyper-accurate fret placement. Stopping the fret slots short of the edges of the board gives a "bound" look without binding, and makes the board stiffer overall, since it has 3 mm "rails" down each side. Normally a slotted board wants to curl up, since you’re essentially cutting kerfs into the piece of wood. The slots themselves are also radiused to match the board, so there’s no waste of material there either.

After grinding the ends of the tangs off.

Custom-made string retainer block made of 1/2" solid brass. It has four tapped holes in the other side that mate up to the holes on the bridge. Instead of the bridge being screwed to the body with wood screws, it’s bolted through to this retainer block. The resonance and projection is incredible. This also gives an easy string grounding point for guitars that have GraphTech saddles on them, which are non-conductive.

Distressed Aftermath 7 set from Bare Knuckle Pickups in the UK.

Near-completion teaser shot.

Completed! (Almost… just a bit more fretwork to do after the neck has settled with tension on it for a couple of weeks.) Shot on location at Exotic Woods Inc. http://www.exotic-woods.com

Prototype 1 Javelin body after rough-cutting it on the bandsaw.

The body blank started out about 2 inches thick. It’s been surfaced down to a more modest thickness, and the top will be carved to a 16-inch radius.

Prototype 1 Javelin body. The lighting doesn’t do the figuring justice. The finish will make that grain pop.

The rough-cut Prototype 1 Javelin body.

Bandsawing the MDF body template for the Javelin.

Javelin body template trimmed, sanded and smooth + 7-string neck and headstock templates. (27″ scale, 24 frets)

2010.01.15 Update: The body has been cut on the table router using the new templates. We hit it with a quick coat of Waterlox tung oil finish to see what it’s going to look like… SICK figure on this board!

2010.01.21 Update: Pickup and neck cavities roughed out using a Forstner bit on the drill press. These will be cleaned up on the router table. The control recesses were also cut. We prefer a tight, flat-bottomed control recess to hide the bottom of the knob and any chance that the nut and mounting washer for the pot will be seen, making the controls low-profile but still usable. This guitar is getting a 16″ radius “arc” top, so the knobs won’t be this deep after the carve is done.

2010.01.30 Update: The headstocks attached to the neck blanks of Prototype 1 (rosewood) and Prototype 2 (limba).

The fretboards for Proto 1 (rosewood) and Proto 2 (ebony) were slotted and glued to the necks after the truss rods were inserted.

While the fretboards were clamped and waiting for the glue to cure, i decided to start carving the body contours of Proto 1.

Curvy!

Proto 1′s figured walnut is a lot harder to carve than the white limba i used on Proto 2. After carving and sanding, it’s lost much of its figured appearance due to dust hiding the wood’s grain…

… so i hit it with a thin coat of tung oil! Wow!

This still needs to be taken down in thickness quite a bit. It’s currently thinner and more contoured than other neck joints of this type, but it can go further.

The contours are still quite rough… you can see the file and rasp marks. Those will be sanded out. The middle portion of the back will be scooped out a bit more.

The lines of the back will follow the contours of the top when the top is carved. It will be flowing and organic, with a clear line separating the top from the back.

My outdoor neck-carving rig. The weather was spectacular this weekend, so i worked outside as much as possible.

Hey, this thing’s startin’ to look like some sorta gee-tawr!

The neck is rough-carved at this point. It’s got a nice, even profile, but still a bit chunky.

Nice smooth neck-to-body transition… about as smooth as you can get with a bolt-on neck. The heel slides comfortably into the palm of the hand in the highest register on the neck.

The heel will still likely be thinned down a bit, but you can see how the neck-to-body transition is nice and smooth… about as smooth as you can get with a bolt-on neck.

2010.03.15 Update: Proto 1 body and neck carved!

There’s a light coat of tung oil on the body and a tiny bit of lemon oil on the neck and fretboard just to bring out the colour.

The body has about a 15″ or 16″ radius on the top, which you can see gives some dramatic curves and sweeps to the lines of the guitar.

This isn’t a carved top in the tradition of an stringed instrument or an archtop guitar. It’s more of a “radius” or “arc” top.

Looking from the butt end of the guitar.

Note the upper horn.

The rear contours.

The upper horn sweeps into the tummy carve, and the ridge softens out into a very smooth and organic curved back.

Waist cut detail.

Detail of the sweep of the horns.

Another shot of the body.

Some final sanding and the first coat of oil.

Crazy figuring!

Check out those stripes.

Further coats of oil will fill in the grain a bit more.

Purty.

Very purty.

3 mm side inlay dots.

… and they glow! Luminlay… great product. I’ll probably be using it on more guitars.

Logo!

Proto 1 gets its markings on the back of the headstock and inside the neck pocket.

Dry fretboard.

Oiled fretboard!

Assembled and strung!

Custom Nordstrand Decibuckers, ABM bridge, 6-way Free-Way pickup selector, master volume and tone.

Guitar by Decibel. Appliances by KitchenAid.

Seven coats of polymerized tung oil. No buffing.

3-piece East Indian rosewood neck. One-piece figured walnut body.

The wiring isn’t hooked up yet, and i still have to fabricate a control cavity cover.

Shiny!

2010.07.14 Update: Complete! At least until i decide to start modifying it and swapping out components to test other ideas.

Rear view. The aluminum control cavity cover is a quickie that i fabricated just to keep the innards from spilling out. It does a decent job, though! I’ll probably get better plates fabricated, likely from aluminum.

View from the butt end of the guitar.

Curly black walnut body.

You can almost see the Luminlay side dots glowing in the daylight!

Here you can see the radius on the top of the body. It’s approximately 16″, so everything follows the arc of the fretboard radius. It’s slightly flattened in the middle to allow easier mounting of the bridge.

Inside the cutaway. Pretty effortless access to the 24th fret.

Recessed controls. I like that they’re sunk out of the way. Future builds may be a little less recessed, as it does pose some issues, mainly because there’s some wobble to most pots, which causes the knurled knobs to make contact with the walls of the recess when attempting “pinky” swells.

3/4 view of the body.

A close-up of the player’s view of the controls. The toggle is out of the way enough for me, but some players may not like it. I may consider moving the controls further back.

The lower 1/3 of the body literally disappears from view when playing, except for the controls.

One niggly little imperfection i’m disappointed with… the depth stop on the drill press i was using either wasn’t set right or it slipped, and one of the “pin” holes for the Sperzels got drilled right through the face. I did a quick fill, but didn’t try very hard to make it disappear. It’s there as a reminder to ALWAYS TRIPLE-CHECK THE DEPTH STOP! And hey… it’s a prototype!

Back of the headstock.

PROTO1!

The amazing disappearing upper horn! It’s incredibly comfortable, and surprisingly strong! In the future, i will likely do the top radius first, and then the carving inside the horns to leave a bit more material there for strength.

The neck heel is deeply contoured and tapers away from the full body thickness to about 1/2″ where it meets the neck.

A lot of material has been removed from the lower cutaway area to give very smooth and comfortable access to the upper register.

Here you can see the organic blending of planes, lines and curves… visually interesting and extremely comfortable.

Neutrik locking jacks are superbly engineered, but are a little bulky. I chose to recess it, protecting the jack and cable, and giving a cleaner appearance from the front.