My first hollowbody (semi?) guitar...

[Ray Holt]

Hey guys,

I know this is another guitar, and I'm ready for any ball-busting that brings But really, lutherie covers such a huge variety of instruments, it's cool to see what EVERYONE is doing. To me at least.

So, I wanted to do something different and decided to make a hollowbody. The insides are inspired by how Scott French does pretty much all of his guitars, with the "tuning fork" style. The bridge and neck pickup will mount to those two strips of wood coming down. The body wood is Sipo, which is a mahogany substitute. A bit heavier than African, seems to be a bit harder, likes to chip more. But that's just from working with it for a few days. The top is walnut.

The overall thickness is 2 3/16, but it's light as heck! The sides are a half inch thick, and there's 13/32" on the bottom (I was going for 3/8, but got to 13/32" and it was all cleaned up, so figured what the heck!). The body weighs in at about 3.5 pounds.

Just did the f-holes today, I used a 1/4" x 1" straight bit and a template. I just moved the bit down so that some of the smooth shank would ride on the template. It was a bit scary though, because some of the cutting surface of the blade was on the template too, and the template was aluminum! It never caught though. Then I went in and cleaned them up with some 4" files.

So this is as far as I am right now! I am REALLY digging this hollowbody deal... I think I may have found my "thing".





The big hole you see where the neck pocket will be was a good time. I used 2 screws to register the top when gluing it on. When I went to take the screws out, the cap busted off the one in the neck pocket... so I had to dig it out!






I've only been working on this for 3 days now... can you tell I'm excited?

[Greenman]

Lookin good Ray. Nice design also.

[T2W]

SWEET !! Im probably not as excited as you are (actually yes, from my bass) but hell that is amazing, How the hell do you guys do these clean cuts? Of course youre gonna answer 'with a template' but.... ok... how do you do a template? nice piece of MDF and you let the ball bearing of your router bit follow that? what about depth? just different bits? hmmmm.... I really should find out before I get those Nordstrands. Anyhow, that guitar is lookin completely amazing Ray ! Ill definitely be takin a look at this thread everyday. Thanks for the inspiration ! Peace.

[Ray Holt]

The clean cuts inside the body were with a template, yes. I used a piece of MDF and a top bearing bit... 1/2" x 1/2" to start and then a 1/2" by 1" when I had to go deeper. The biggest thing I can say about making your own templates is take your time and do it right. If there's a little bump or dip in your template, there will be a little bump or dip in your piece of wood. So take your time on the template because it's a lot easier to sand a piece of MDF than a big hunk of wood. A little extra work and attention on the template can save you tons of time down the road.

The f-holes, I used a template too, but it was really rough! I went back in and really cleaned them up with some files.

Should be starting on the neck soon. Thanks for the kind words!

[superbassman2000]

that is going to turn out awesome!

[Worshiper]

looks great...can't wait to see this one finished.

[wilser]

another 6 string midget soprano bass guitar!!!

nice! happy times!

[Ray Holt]

I was waiting for you to chime in Wilser

Didn't get a whole lot done today, I drilled the holes for the pots/switch and output jack, and started the fretboard today, I started binding it at the end of the day.

I think I'm going to bind the top and bottom of the body, and maybe do a wedge right at the butt of the guitar. I'm doing maple binding... I'm going to have a hell of a time bending it around those horns.

But I am confident that it can be done!

[spudmaster34]

that is going to be sweet

[JSPguitars]

Ray,
That looks exceptional! Very clean, very nice design. F-holes turned out really nice as well. What kind of bridge/tailpiece are you going with? Pickups?

I'm building my first semi-hollow guitar as well (actually, it's more full hollow). Hope you don't mind if I post some pics....as looking at yours are helping to push me getting going more on this thing as time allows. I ,rather ignorantly, did not extend any of the body core under the bridge at all. IT's just all hollow, which I think will make for a some major problems in the future. It's a redwood top about 3/4" + thick, so it's soft. It's my first time "contouring" a top as well. There is an additional piece of wood glued under the top where the bridge will sit.

Looking forward to seeing the progress!!

PS....due to a major design flaw, my f-hole(s) got placed where they are. It's not the kind of f-hole (design or location) I wanted at all, but we'll just consider this another 'prototype' instrument.

[Ray Holt]

Thanks for the kind words JSP! I am planning on doing a good ol' tune-o-matic with a stop-tailpiece. I haven't decided on pickups yet... I really want to pick the right ones for this guitar. Any suggestions? So far I've like all of the Duncans I've used... we'll see.

Don't mind you posting pics at all, I'm glad you're sharing. Man that's a bummer about not having any of the body core under the bridge... I don't think that will work out too well. How thick is the piece of wood glued under the top where the bridge will sit? What kind of bridge are you doing? The body shape is wild (in a good way), and the contouring looks nice. I'm so hooked on this hollowbody thing I think I'm going to make another with the body blank hollowed all the way through (with the tuning fork style for the hardware to mount to) and do a maple top AND back, and countour them both.

I'll have the fingerboard bound on Monday, and I'll start on the neck blank then too. The only silly mistake I've made so far is I drilled the hole for the output jack already, so I'm going to have to plug that temporarily with some dowel. Because I'm going to bind the top (and back), the bottom bearing bit would drop into the output jack hole and cut way too far into the top. Not sure if that made sense, but it'll be ok.

[JSPguitars]

Yeap, that made sense. It's hard to pre-plan all the little things...
As for pickups, there's so many........
I've been reading all the rave reviews of the WCR/Wagners, Wolfetones, Lollars, etc. over at the gearpage.net, but I have yet to play a guitar with these pickups. They are pricey, and $$ is an issue for me.
As for Duncans, I love the Seth Lovers, and the 59's, and the JB's.....
As for my guitar, I just don't think it was well thought out from the beginning, but we'll see how the bridge (tune-o-matic) and top will hold up. I've made a pretty cheesy archtop-style tailpiece from maple that I'm trying to figure out how to attach right now....maybe a brass bracket or something.
I left some depth to the back so I could 'arch' the back as well. I'll post more pics as it continues.
Cheers!

[msherman]

Looking good, Ray! Did you leave enough thickness on the back for the tummy rout, or are you not going to have one?

[Ray Holt]

I'm not going to have one, I'm planning on binding the top and the back.

[Ray Holt]

It's been a while, but I finally got some pics today for an update. It's tough man, I've got so much junk going on at once. I'm trying to work on this, but at the same time pay attention to 28 students, and do other work for the school, and build amp cabinets... bah, it's getting to be too much.

So, I got the binding done. Man what a pain that upper horn was! I decided to do maple binding with B/W/B purfling... I did purfling on the top/back too because of a slip of with a router. I superglued the binding on, because I had a hell of a time bending that upper horn. I got it pretty close bending by hand, then I just forced it to form and had somebody super glue it and hit it with accelerator. I think it came out pretty well.

I'm liking it more and more. I got the neck carved, it's a fatty. .985" at the 1st fret and 1.015" near the heel. I made the heel extra big because the body is extra thick! I put the ebony heel cap on there for looks, and I'm pretty happy with how it looks!!!

Just routed the bridge pup yesterday and glued the neck on, so now I can rout the neck, then fret and finish sand and start spraying lacquer. You guys have any suggestions for good jazzy style pups? I was thinking of a nice jazz pup for the neck, but something with some bite for the bridge so I can get it all.



I haven't cleaned up any of the glue around the neck yet. It's a pain here in AZ, titebond dries SO fast, it was tacking up before I even had the neck in the friggin pocket.


See at the bottom left of the heel, right where the lower cutaway drops off? That point in the binding, I BENT! I didn't miter it there, the miter is right at the centerline. I bent it around that little point, I took a soldering iron with a flat tip




Here's what I made today, it's a jig for doing finger joints. I'm going to use it for making these amp cabinets. As you can see, it was a little off and that last finger was way thinner than everything else. If it's even off a little bit it gets multiplied every cut you make. The chart that came with the dado blade was wrong :\ I made that spiffy throat plate too.

[Ray Holt]

I'm also not sure what I want to do for inlay on that guitar. I don't want anything on the fretboard, but I was thinking of doing something on the headstock. Anyone have any ideas that kind of "fit" this guitar?

I've thought of doing a couple of flowers, using maple as the stems and flamed koa for the flowers, or a flower with a hummingbird feeding. I don't know.

Throw anything out there.

[NickyBass]

Looking great. Any plans on making a semi hollow bass?? I would love to have a nice 5 string longscale hollow body like that.

[Ray Holt]

I hadn't really thought of that, anything's possible though! I probably wouldn't hollow it out as much, my only fear being that it would end up neck-heavy.

[Ray Holt]

Hey guys, just a quick update. I decided to do a simple inlay of a flower on the headstock, without my Holt logo. I made a nice label, that's inside of the bass-side f-hole. I really dig it. I finally got it out in the spray booth today, and this is it with only ONE coat of lacquer on it.

MAN that Walnut is beautiful


The Sipo doesn't look too bad either




I'll be able to get some better pictures soon, I was in a rush out the door and just snapped these off. Let me know what you think!

[Nomad98]

WOW... Great looking guitar! (Please make this style in a bass before I do! )