Once a design is aesthetically working, i get down to the detailed design work, creating super-accurate routing templates.

In this case, the hollow body requires more templates than i normally would need for a body. The body will be made of two 1″ thick pieces of lumber that will be mated together. Before joining them, they will be hollowed out. The top and back pieces have slightly different routing patterns to account for the arm and rib “comfort carves”. The pickguard and control + soundhole placement also needs to be done very accurately.

Once my initial sketches started to evolve more toward final designs, i started working at full size, so i could lay things out accurately. I don’t have any CAD training, but my background as a graphic designer allowed me to use Adobe Illustrator to create very accurate vector drawings to scale, which i have been able to use to create perfect templates for cutting and routing.

Laser-cut routing templates allow me to lay out and cut all the elements in perfect registration. Because my template supplier knows the exact thickness of the kerf cut by the laser, i can offset the cutting paths by half that thickness in order to get parts that mate up perfectly. This is especially important for the neck heel and pocket. After routing, the joint is usually so tight that the body can be lifted by the neck with a friction-fit joint only.

Just the drilling for my neck bolt system requires seven separate drilling operations for each bolt… three per hole on the body side, four per hole on the neck side. Getting all of those holes bang-on is critical, otherwise the bolts won’t line up with the threaded inserts in the neck. So having accurate templates for the body and neck heel in perfect registration is a very important part of making a quality instrument built to very fine tolerances.

Eventually, i want to be doing moving from Illustrator to a CAD application and executing these operations on a CNC machine, rather than having to take the intermediate step of creating templates and using a table router. In my opinion, stuff that requires dead-on accuracy is best done by machines, so the more of these critical operations that can be done on a computer-controlled carving machine, the better. This is a controversial subject among builders and players, but i’ll write more on that subject later.

So far, the feedback has been tremendous and very supportive, so i just want to thank all of the friends, colleagues, and fellow guitarists who have given feedback and support. I take every bit of feedback seriously, and i do take it all very constructively. As a professional designer, i’ve learned over the years to separate myself from my work, so while i am attached to my design work, it’s just my work, and nothing you say can offend me personally. Everyone sees things differently, and if someone can help me to see my own work in a different light or from a different perspective, it makes the end result better.

I thought i’d share a few brief notes about the genesis of the models you see here. I’ll hopefully delve into these in a bit more detail and try to dredge up some sketches and earlier works in progress. But for now, here’s the brief history of the range as it stands today.

The Javelin is the design i’ve been working on the longest. It is, in many ways, the spiritual successor to my Number One, which i built a little over 20 years ago. I’ve been constantly sketching, refining, tweaking and revising that design since i first built it, knowing one day i’d be building again. It’s undergone countless design revisions over the years, and has been in its current form since late 2008. It has has only received very minor updates since then, so suffice it to say that i’m very pleased with where it has ended up. When Brian offered me the piece of figured walnut (Number One also has a walnut body), i knew that the stars had aligned and it was time to finally bring it to life.

The Cutlass i’ve been working on the next longest, and it was originally the model i was going to call the AMX. Right now, the Cutlass is the one design i’m not entirely happy with, which is how i ended up going back to the drawing board and creating the AMX from the Javelin. The Cutlass started as an extension of an idea i had for a “Parker Fly” style singlecut, and as i tweaked and refined and stretched and tweaked it some more, i started seeing too much Fernandes Ravelle and Ibanez Iceman in it. Not that there’s anything wrong with the design of either of those iconic instruments, but as it is right now, it doesn’t feel as original as i once thought, so i’m taking a bit of a break from it and might approach it with fresh eyes in a couple of months.

The AMX came together really quickly, pretty much over the course of an evening. It’s the result of some feedback i got from various people to whom i showed the initial designs to. I’m quite happy with it, and it seems to be getting a lot of very positive response from people.

The Aviator and Stealth were an interesting exercise. I initially drew a design similar to the Stealth a few years ago. I had always liked KK Downing’s Hamer mini-V, the Carvin V220 and Ultra V and Jackson King Vs, but never felt comfortable playing a V. I never liked the way they hung on a strap or where my picking arm and wrist rested in relation to the strings… they just never worked well for me ergonomically. I thought i’d try offsetting the body to create an upper “horn” extension in order to shift the balance point to where i’m more accustomed to it being. After a lot of experimentation and design work to get the proportions right, i was pretty happy. The Stealth came first, and then i rounded it off and made adjustments to get the Aviator. The Stealth X was added in order to add a leg rest to a V… the upper horn was added to balance it out.

The Prototype 2 Aviator is a true prototype… i’ve made some assumptions based on my experience and designed something which i think will work, but until i get that neck and body bolted together, i won’t know for sure. A friend of mine called it “a V for Strat players,” which i think is probably a fitting description. I’ve always liked the feel and balance of an offset double-cutaway body, but also have had a soft spot for some of the more radical designs. (The first guitar i really lusted for was the Gibson Explorer.) It’s a pretty exciting process, and i can’t wait to see how it turns out!