See the whole build over at http://decibelguitars.com/proto1.

Check out those stripes.

My band has a CD release party on July 12th, and i’d love to be playing a brand-spankin’ new Decibel on stage, so i’m doing a big push this week to try and get Proto 1 into playable shape.

I’ve put 3 coats of polymerized tung oil on the body so far. I’m aiming to do at least 2 coats per day for the next few days. I’ve filled a couple of minor holes and all the fret slot ends along the edges of the fretboard. Left to do:

• Apply the logo to the headstock
• Clearcoat the headstock face
• Fit the tuners
• Glue on the nut
• install side marker dots
• Install pickups and wire them up
• Install the bridge
• Make and install a control cavity cover

This guitar will eventually be getting a GraphTech piezo system, but i’m going to forego that for now, since i won’t need it for the show, and i still need to do some milling on the bridge base plate to accommodate the piezo wiring.

Check out the Proto 1 page for the whole picstory!

Most of my effort over the last couple of weeks has gone into getting some bodies and necks prepped before the shop move. I’ll likely be on a bit of a hiatus for a few weeks while my own space gets finished. Then i’ll be ready to start acquiring more tools and moving into the space to get back to building.

The body for Proto 3 has been trimmed out, along with a nice figured mahogany Javelin body, and another AMX out of swamp ash. These will likely become dB1 and dB2 respectively!

More to come soon!

Even in their unfinished state, people were able to pick up and hold both models, to get a sense for the ergonomics, the neck carves and the on-strap balance. Both the Javelin and the Aviator were very warmly received. Thanks, guys!

Proto 1 has been fretted, and all the extra little bits of drilling and routing have been done. I still have to thin down the headstock a little to accommodate the tuners, install side dots and do a little bit of filling and sanding. Then it’s just a matter of applying the tung oil and beeswax finish, installing hardware and electronics, then doing the final setup.

Proto 2 is almost at the same stage, it’s just awaiting fret installation, then it’ll be the same steps, with the exception of the finish, which i’m still thinking about sending out for a solid white paint job. (With a secret twist…)

So i’m likely going to start doing a big push on getting bodies and necks glued up and cut out. Proto 3 is on deck and just about ready to go. And i have some wood for the next couple of instruments after that… a mahogany Javelin and a swamp ash Stealth. These will very likely be officially designated dB1 and dB2… the first serial-numbered Decibels!

But don’t hold your breath… I also want to update you on what’s happening with Decibel’s shop space. Thus far, i’ve been borrowing shop space from our good friend Brian Bowes. For the last couple of months, life events have resulted in Brian needing to close down his workshop, so Decibel will no longer have a dedicated space in which to work as of the end of April.

But fear not… in the few weeks we have left, i’m hoping to get at least a couple more bodies and necks cut and prepped, so i can keep working on my own in a limited capacity until my own shop space is up and running. (If anyone out there has a shop i can borrow time in, that would be awesome!) Hopefully things will be back on track by the end of the summer, but i’ll continue to post updates and get whatever done that i can.

I’m very pleased with the results. I smoothed out the contours on the heel to flow more seamlessly into the neck. It’s now a little more “SR-71″ and less “F-117″… you aviation geeks will know what i mean.

I actually did some of the final shaping of the neck joint with the neck bolted up to the body. There’s a seamless flow from the neck into the body like i’ve never seen before on a bolt-on instrument.

Take a look at the Prototype 2 build page to see the whole evolution.

On the second day of carving, i slimmed it down quite a bit and made it a lot less blocky. The contour i ended up with actually surprised me a little, because it’s almost exactly the opposite of what i had in mind when i started.

My original plan was to have a soft “V” at the nut end of the neck, and have it gradually flatten out into a thin even “C” toward the body. But theory and practice often yield different results, and as i sat and carved the neck, using nothing but my left hand as a guide for its shape, the neck profile took an unexpected turn.

At the nut, it’s a nice slim even “C” shape, nicely rounded across the whole profile. I’m not a big fan of the “flat in the middle” feel of most thinner “D” type shredder necks. I’ll have to throw the calipers on it to see exactly what the depth of the neck is after i sanded the radius into the fretboard, but my guess is it’s around 21 or 22 mm.

As you move up the neck, it gets slightly thicker, but the shoulders of the neck start to taper down a little bit. Around the 7th fret, things really start to change. The neck starts to get a little more asymmetrical, and a soft “ridge” starts to reveal itself. By about the 12th fret, it’s an asymmetrical soft “V” shape. And it feels wonderful. It’s almost as if the neck is molded from an extruded cylinder of clay, and then shaped to fit a shifting hand shape as you move up the neck. The mass of wood beneath the hand feels the same, but it’s just distributed differently depending on where you are on the neck.

In my experience, i tend to play with my thumb over the neck when playing open-position chords and more complex voicings slightly higher up on the neck. As i move up the neck, my wrist naturally rotates downward toward the floor. The transition from the even “C” to the soft asymmetrical “V” essentially tracks along with my thumb on the bass side of the neck. I’ve never felt a neck quite like this, and i can’t wait to play it. After sitting with the neck bolted to the body, i really think it may be the best neck profile for me. Being primarily a rhythm player, i need good leverage all across the neck to hold down tricky chords and have them ring true without buzzing. I think this neck profile with accomplish that.

Look at more build pics on the Proto 1 page.

For full detail on the build, see the Proto 1 page.