Decibel Guitars » Javelin

dB8: Curly European ash Javelin

Decibel Guitars — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:42:14 +0000

Build	dB8
Model	Javelin
Body	1-piece curly European ash
Neck	Flame maple
Fretboard	Rosewood
Electronics	Bare Knuckle Nailbomb set
Hardware	Floyd Rose Pro 7
Start date	May 4, 2012
Completion date

More info soon…

dB6: Mahogany + Koa Javelin

Decibel Guitars — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:40:51 +0000

Build	dB6
Model	Javelin
Body	2-piece South American mahogany w/ bookmatched figured Koa top
Neck	South American mahogany + ebony
Fretboard	Rosewood
Electronics	Bare Knuckle Black Dog set
Hardware	Hipshot
Start date	May 4, 2012
Completion date

More info soon…

dB5: Roasted ash Javelin (left-handed)

Decibel Guitars — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:40:10 +0000

Build	dB5
Model	Javelin
Body	2-piece roasted ash
Neck	Roasted maple
Fretboard	TBD
Electronics	H-S Custom wound pickups from Oni Guitars
Hardware	Hipshot
Start date	May 4, 2012
Completion date

More info soon…

dB10: Paulownia Javelin (stock build)

Decibel Guitars — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:32:57 +0000

Build	dB10
Model	Javelin
Body	1-piece Paulownia
Neck	TBD
Fretboard	Ebony
Electronics	Lace Alumitone DB7 and HB7
Hardware	Hipshot
Start date	May 4, 2012
Completion date

dB4: Dan Spitz Javelin

Decibel Guitars — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 05:48:52 +0000

Build	dB4
Model	Javelin
Body	2-piece Black limba back with 1″ 1-piece figured maple top
Neck	5-piece curly black limba with 2 black-and-white Gabon ebony stringers
Fretboard	Snakewood, 14″ to 22″ compound radius (32″ radius at the bridge), 25.5″ scale, 24 Jescar 57110-S (stainless) frets
Electronics	DiMarzio Dan Spitz Signature set Free-Way 6-way toggle Master volume 500k pot Master tone 500k pot Recessed locking Neutrik output jack
Hardware	Bridge: recessed Schaller Hannes fixed 6 (black) Tuners: Hipshot Grip-Lock (black)
Start date	June 17, 2011
Completion date

I recently got an email out of the blue asking if i would be interested in collaborating with Dan Spitz on a guitar he would use on the upcoming Red Lamb tour. There’s no way i could NOT jump on the opportunity to work with a Grammy-nominated metal legend. The next day we had a great chat on the phone and talked rough specs and wood ideas, and have been sending a flurry of emails back and forth as we sourced woods and shared ideas.

Here’s where we’ve started:

This rendering shows the control locations, cavities for the signature DiMarzio pickups being made for Dan by Steve Blucher, and the recess for the Schaller Hannes bridge.

The nature of the deeply radiused top means i have to start with VERY thick pieces of wood. The top starts at 1.5″ thick. The top and mating surfaces are radiused so the body ends up being about a 50/50 mix of the top and back woods, with each being about 1″ thick at the middle.

The radius top allows the controls to be easily accessible, but out of the way at the same time.

Black limba. (body back)

Wild/quilted/spalted 1-piece maple top

Figured black limba. (neck core and headstock)

Black and white Gaboon ebony. (neck stringers)

Snakewood. (fretboard)

This shows the geometry for the compound radius fretboard to Dan’s specs. It starts around 14″ at the nut and goes to 32″ at the bridge. (This results in about a 22″ radius at the 24th fret). The headstock face will also have a radius to match the nut end of the fretboard.

The wood layout for Dan’s Javelin. 2-piece black limba back, figured black limba neck with two ebony stringers, snakewood fretboard and headstock overlay. And a SICK quilted/spalted/wild 1-piece maple top.

Misha takes delivery of dB1 (for real this time)

Decibel Guitars — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 05:22:01 +0000

Misha “Bulb” Mansoor of Periphery takes Proto1 for a test drive…

Decibel Guitars — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 01:19:09 +0000

I’ve had the good fortune to follow the meteoric rise of Misha Mansoor and his band Periphery over the last few years through some guitar forums i’ve been on for quite a while. Once Proto1 was finished, Misha sent me a message asking how he could try it. I told him that when Periphery came to Toronto, i’d get the guitar into his hands. They finally announced a tour date with Veil of Maya and Darkest Hour, and came to town on November 17.

I spent a few hours getting the guitar set up to Misha’s specs… heavier strings, tuned to drop-A flat, and tweaking the neck to get the action as low as possible but still playing clean. I showed up at the venue before the show and Misha took it for a quick whirl, and then played it for the first two songs of their set. (He would have had more time with it, but they arrived in town late and had almost no time to load in and set up.) Here are a couple of videos of his first playing impressions and then the opening of the show.

Enjoy!

I got a lot of positive feedback and constructive critique from Misha, which will help improve future instruments. Thanks again, Bulb and the rest of Periphery for such an awesome show.

Parts in progress, 2010.04.28

Decibel Guitars — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:34:23 +0000

I’m in the process of moving into my own shop… there’s still a lot to do, but i’m getting a bit of build time here and there. I’ve built up a small inventory of roughed-out parts, so i thought i’d take some pictures as a little teaser of what’s coming up…

Family shot. Left to right: Proto 3 AMX, dB1 Javelin, dB2 AMX.

Prototype 1 takes shape… literally!

Decibel Guitars — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:39:32 +0000

Take a look at the Prototype 1 page for the full progress of this build.

Proto 1 neck carving!

Decibel Guitars — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:10:24 +0000

The weather was beautiful this weekend, so i carved the neck on Prototype 1.

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.

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.