Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

crusty philtrum

crusty philtrum

Vintageologist
In 1993/4 I designed a guitar to use the hardware from a Washburn Bantam guitar I had (80's Steinberger-style guitar), and a friend of mine who had gotten into guitar building built it for me. I had some input, including carving the top. I also ended up with another body block from the same plank of Honduras mahogany, and I recently turned that into a Les Paul style instrument that some of you may have seen in my build thread recently. (that thread is now residing in The Vault).

The headless guitar was my main guitar for over a decade but fell into disuse due to a couple of issues that needed adressing, However, in the last few days, i got her re-assembled and fitted out with new pickups .... a 59/Jazz hybrid in the neck, and a JB/Custom hybrid in the bridge, both A5 magnets. BTW, the body of this guitar was so small that my mate was able to cut the neck pieces from right alongside the body, so you won't find a neck and body more closely related than that.

So finally i have been able to take some pics of the two sisters, together and playable. The headless is due for some new frets, and I have some tools coming from StewMac for that purpose (yet another new skill to learn, hehe). The LP has had a lot of time spent with magnet swaps, and now just needs some fine-tuning to the playability.

But it's great to finally have these two girls up and running, they are both very special to me, so here they are together. (It's hard to believe, but the scale length of the headless is actually 25", 1/4" longer than the LP).

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Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

They look great. I would go buy a $100 Squier and do a few practice runs on the refret work before digging into a go to guitar. Sounds like you have skills though so it may not be necessary for you
 
Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

That's excellent, mate --- some planks really do have an identity.

I have a lot of mahogany scraps in my shop and I can tell which scraps came from which guitar without looking - just feeling them and knocking on them. They just have a signature, you know?

I believe that a guitar with the same plank for body and neck would move extremely well (if the plank was good to start!)
 
Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

Both of those are just gorgeous. Your thread documenting the progress of the younger sibling helped me tremendously during my build.
 
Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

That is THE sweetest headless guitar I have ever seen!!! I'm drooling right now...
 
Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

I usually can't get into headless guitars, but I have to admit that yours is particularly sweet. Love that color!
 
Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

AudioWonderland said:
They look great. I would go buy a $100 Squier and do a few practice runs on the refret work before digging into a go to guitar. Sounds like you have skills though so it may not be necessary for you
Click to expand...

I have a couple of non-critical necks i will be practicing on before i tackle the serious stuff, fretwork has always been the 'final frontier' for me, and I wish it was something I'd learnt a long time ago. However, over the years, I've seen and read a lot, and of course now there are some great tools, information and videos that simply didn't exist or couldn't be accessed back in the 'old days'.

Now it's just a matter of getting started and gaining some experience and hopefully building the skills.
 
Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

GuitarDoc said:
I usually can't get into headless guitars, but I have to admit that yours is particularly sweet. Love that color!
Click to expand...

Many people have an aversion to headless guitars for some reason ....man, the jokes I used to have to listen to whenever I was setting up my gear somewhere. I think it peaked somewhere in the late 90s when I used to play the headless guitar through a 1960s crocodile-skin Selmer Thunderbird amp while everyone else seemed to have pointy guitars and Marshalls or Peavey EVH amps. Eventually i learnt to stay cool and let the guitar do the talking .... that usually stopped the stream of jokes, heheh.

The funny thing is that when you play it, it just feels so comfortable that you don't even realise it's a headless guitar. What i used to notice was that anyone who played it for the first time would think they were jammin' in the key of A, at the fifth position, and they were actually in the 7th position, in 'B', hehehe.

When the hardware was still part of the Washburn Bantam, Steinberger-style 'cricket bat', that guitar was fantastic for it's portability and i took it everywhere. I knew that the woodwork was very average, so my idea was to have a new chasis built that gave it better tone but would still retain some of the convenience I'd grown to love. The end result is compact but very heavy (that bridge and tuner mechanism is milled brass and steel) but there's something about the way it sits or hangs during playing that just seems to make it merge into your body.

What i have noticed so far is that she sounds very similar to her bigger, younger sister, which kinda surprised me. But that's a great thing, as they both sound wonderful. (That's something that i will be working on very soon ... soundclips .... just got to sort out a minor problem with my music computer .... sheesh, sometimes i get tired of fixing everything, hahaha !)
 
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Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

Dude, you get a star in your crown, for building not one, but two of your own guitars, and then playing them into amps you also built.

Hats off, man.

:notworthy
 
Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

Beautiful work. I recently started playing lap steel and want to build one.This is an inspiration for sure. Stew-Mac is only fifty miles from me, what should I listen for when I pick a body blank?
 
Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

you're taking some awesome shots with the new camera too
it's all coming up crusty!!
:beerchug:
 
Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

Ohh, didn't see this before.
Nice to see that damn thing finally assembled!
A bump for Neil/Crusty too, for those who haven't seen this yet.
 
Re: Sisters From The Same Tree, Same Plank !!!

Ah, so you finally got those bridge parts for the headless.

I bet when you play either one, the other resonates in sympathy ;).
 
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