Organical played a show last week… here are a few shots of me playing Proto 1:

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This is what i hope to be the first of many.

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

Well, it’s been a busy month trying to get the first two prototypes (or at least one of them) done in time for the Post-NAMM JAMM at my friend Kevan’s house. Unfortunately, time constraints meant they weren’t complete in time, but they’re almost there.

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.

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

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

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.

More progress…

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