Proto 1 is now complete!

Decibel Guitars — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:49:50 +0000

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

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

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. Custom humbuckers from Nordstrand Pickups with 1/4″ pole pieces. Badass.

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.

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.

Decibel Guitars » rosewood neck

Proto 1 is now complete!

Proto 1 neck carving!