How the Helix guitar is made video series Part III This week our third installment of our Helix how it was made video series covers the steps I take to make the matching headstock veneer, cutting and shaping and installation of the twelfth fret mother of pearl inlay and fretting the neck. Some of these [...]
We made a series of build videos for our new Helix model. Last year we started designing a new model based around a super strat that we ultimately named the Helix. Although it has some similarities to other guitars out there it has some subtle differences we wanted to incorporate like a super thin neck [...]
Screw-less Grain Matched Cavity Cover Demo Screw-less electronics cavity covers. There are thin but powerful neodymium magnets imbedded inside the cover plate. We've engineered it so that casual bumps with medal objects like your belt buckle don't accedentally dislodge it. It can only be removed with the specially built cube tool (included with the guitar). The cube is made [...]
Truss rod cover with no Screws. We wanted something a little more elegant and easier to access than the way a traditional truss cover is mounted to the headstock with a conventional screw. We started experimenting with designs using rare earth magnets hidden under the truss rod cover. Finding the correct size and strength of magnet took a bit of experimentation in the beginning. [...]
Bone is my first choice of nut material because its super dense, long lasting and beautiful. I think it's an unbeaten part of the recipe for solid resonance and long sustain on an instrument. That's a fractional part of the formula for great tone. Here is a short step by step pictorial of how I [...]
A technique for adding the truss rod recess cavity into the headstock. As of the writing of this post one of my favorite techniques to add a truss recess is to carve it in by hand with a sharp gouge then sand it smooth and dye or spray the inside black. This saves me time from having to set [...]
Followup to the previous post. Here are some progress pics of three inlaid fretboards I'm working on. From left to right we have an ebony board with MOP block inlays with an ABS pin stipe and ebony binding. Next is a cocobolo board with gold and white crown inlays and some figured maple binding. On the [...]
Some fretboards for the next batch. We have some fretboards that we've been slotting and preparing for some spec builds. From left to right we haven rosewood, a beautiful piece of semi-open grain cocobolo which has tone very similar to rosewood. The two on the left are East Indian black ebony. Ebony has a brighter tone and a [...]
Here are a few progress shots of the cavity covers on my Artist model. Most off-the-shelf guitars you'll see and even a lot of custom builds will have a plain plastic cavity cover on the back with a few wood screws securing it. This is fine, but I offer something a bit above and beyond and much [...]