My prototype guitar

[scottfletcher]

I wanted to show and get some feedback on a guitar that I designed. I will give you a little history on how I came up with this particular guitar. I was always a guitar player until around 16yrs. old when I starting becoming intersted in the mechanics of the guitar. I started by tearing into stuff like alot of people do. I always loved wood working too. Slowly between working and school..... I never lost the passion for guitar and music. I remember in 1991 when ernie ball came out with the van halen model. I always liked the sillouette model. Ernie ball built a solid guitar. I could never afford to buy this stuff let alone the fact that the EVH model was expensive and you could not even find one. I remember buying a cheaper model kramer at a pawn shop (lime green) and tore it apart. I used the neck and floyd rose off it. I built a ernie ball EVH body out of hard norhern ash and put together my first guitar. I just got deeper and deeper into the type woods and guitar over the years. At the time I was thinking after years of copying stuff and following what other people were doing I decided it was time to start designing stuff. I got tired of the EVH model just being built with basswood and a maple top. ( I owned as many as nine van halen models and sold them all because of the money back in the late 90's) Van halens lacked sustain in the high notes because of the basswood. I was like this is limiting cutomers and of course the way they were building it kept it within reasonable reach for a production model. I am picky and anylitical but that is what makes me good at it. In fact when I moved out to washington state in 1994 and began hunting for specialty maple I found out alot about the wood part of the business when it comes to guitars. For example I stumbled upon a mill that was cutting just maple for guitars. This guy was selling all his good stuff to prs because PRS was willing to cough up the money. Ernie ball was sticking to mostly average stuff. And this stuff was not as rare and expensive as they would have like people to believe. In fact he told me when peavy called him about maple for the wolfgang, He said they were not going to be able to build that thing with good carve tops and keep it reasonble and sure enough most of the tope are average flame and hoorible quilt for the money.. Anyway so I started buying stuff here and there. Finally i was going to design my own and not rip people off and have fun with it too. In 1995-1996 was start drawing stuff that I liked at the time. I did not want to do strats at the time because that was easy. I took a ernie ball sillouette and crossed it with a EVH body and fine tuned it to look original enough! It was just a natural progression. I am very possesive in nature and showed this to only a few close people. Ya never know if someone will rip you off. AT this time I never had seen the wolfgang model until I saw van halen in 1995 on there balance tour. He had three wolgangs sitting on stage. I was like what the hell are those. By the the end of the show I figued out what was going on. Of couse the evh guitar saga is obvoius to everyone now and still continues with the charvel. I was fortunate to work with floyd rose at his new shop and after talking with floyd about eddie, I understand the whole picture even more. Working with floyd was a great experience for me. I just want to do my own stuff while learning on the way. I love creating and want to be able to say that is mine! I got into a car accident in 2000 that put a damper for a long time on my plans to go forward with it. I became really restless when I saw the new hartley peavey model come out. That just competion for ya. everybody is always pushing the envelope. I like that because that is what makes everything evolve. After working in a shop and being around the block a few times I want to be able to offer this to people. I will attach a couple of pics. The first pic is a ernie ball clone that I built in 1995 and the second pic is my guitar. The ernie ball clone is korina (limba) with a 1/4" maple cap and a original german schaller built floyd rose. is Alder with a quilt top. The neck is canadian hard curly maple with a rare snake wood fretboard. No dots. I am a big fan of the "clean look" of side dots only or the small dots. The body was cut by hand and the neck on a CNC. Any body with interest or questions please ask! I am hoping to get this rolling before 2007. I would be able to offer it in any combonation of materials possible. I really appreciate this site and the opportunity to share this with people. Scott This is my first post and I am going to have to figure out how to get the pics up. you can't just attach it like a regular attachment. My e-mail is scottfletcher2004@yahoo.com for pics too!

[scottfletcher]

Thanks for everybody checking out my post. I did not know you had to join to attach pics, Anyway here are some pics The first pics will be a ernie ball custom clone and then the prototype. The clone has real evh pickups, an ernie ball toggle, and a real original floyd. My prototype (middle pic) this particular one, does not even have a finish on it yet, 5a quilt top on alder. There are only 3 pics per thread so I will ad another post with more pics.

[guitar08man]

Id like to see a more finished version of your prototype, the upper horn looks a little wierd to me right now, but i think thats because its missing a neck pickup. I think in one of your earlier posts you said you liked the silhouette (spelling?) look?

I like your EVH one, allthough id never get to play one of those shapes because on a 6'2" 6"3 person like me, the music man evh shape looks like a friggin toy.

Heres some idears.

Perhaps a pickguard ala silhouette

Maybe work some design cues in from the petrucci (like the arm cutaway), or the luke models?

overall i think you have a really nice looking product, and perhaps one day ill own one (but not right now, ive got a lotta other shiat i gotta get done, lol).

edit: this is just me, but id LOVE to see a 7 string model of sorts.