A BIT OVER A YEAR IN THE MAKING...

[jingle_jangle]

As I mentioned in another thread, I allow myself one hour of work on my own projects for every ten of customers'. This project has been moving glacially over the last year, since JH gave me a garland from a Jazzbo, back in November 2006, when I picked up the surplus masterials from RIC's acoustic shop.

I began soon thereafter to build my own; locating, splitting, gluing, and carving a top from spruce and a back from figured maple (each book-matched), constructing a trial neck to get the geometry just right and then the final neck and fretboard, I'm just at the point where the two will be married and then the finishing begins. The top and back slabs weighed several pounds each; they now weigh mere ounces and the whole raw body tips the scale at 2 3/4 pounds, assembled.

The top has two longitudinal braces about 1/4" X 3/8" made from maple. The back has no bracing. The German hand-carve on both pieces took close to 80 hours to execute and another 20 to finish and detail, and the raw body spent a lot of time in a case in my office, just settling in and stabilizing before it was bound.

The neck is a seven-lamination piece (nine with wings) of maple and walnut. It started out as a solid laminated block 2 1/4" X 4 1/4" X 20" which weighed 5 pounds before trimming and shaping. It now weighs 1 1/4 pounds. This will be a light weight, but very responsive guitar.

[phlemmy]

nice work.

[elysrand]

Great figuring already visible in the maple, nice job of carving too. Bet there are a LOT of hours in THIS one so far...

As always, very well done, Extreme Artisan!

[sloop_john_b]

Checkered binding *on* the fretboard?! Talk about deluxe!

[jingle_jangle]

About 135 so far. Finishing remaining. However, this weekend I get to string it up, unfinished. I should get a scope and see what the wave forms look like raw, sealed, and fully varnished...

[jps]

Nice, Paul!

What kind of tailpiece are you going to make/use? Ebony, metal?

[kenposurf]

You are an artist Paul

[squid]

I always thought that the 760J as offered by Rickenbacker was a bit of a steal. They were asking for about $3000 US at one point, which is an unbelievably fair price for a hand-carved archtop. Of course, they never materialized, and this thread shows why. They are extremely tricky to build. I assume, Paul, that you did the requisite tap-tuning. What's the natural resonance of this baby?

[jingle_jangle]

It was tap-tuned, and the back is 1/2 tone higher than the top, B/C. Now that it's assembled and the neck is on (it was glued on after the above pics were taken), I will re-check the tone tomorrow or Sunday...the fundamental often changes.

This is the most exciting time in a long project like this--to finally see things come together into an instrument.

Interesting you should mention tailpiece, Jeff...it's the one part that's had me a bit stymied. I've looked at literally at least fifty production units (I have a Benedetto on one of my jumbo jazzboxes and don't think it works well from an appearance standpoint).

I also have an NOS Gretsch Country Club tailpiece that's about 40 years old. The Jazzbo that we've all seen pics of--the one in the RIC collection--has a tailpiece similar to a conventional and very simple Allparts trapeze. (It might even be an Allparts unit). I also have a couple of others that i'll keep under wraps for now. I can say that whatever it is, it'll be metal and it'll be gold-plated like the rest of the hardware. I've got a couple of more tricks up my sleeve on this one, too. Time will tell. It'll probably start out with the gold-plated wire-and diamond Allparts unit, until I see something that knocks my socks off.

[elysrand]

..on one of my jumbo jazzboxes.....

[cheyenne]

You are a gifted man Paul....

[sowhat]

Looks lovely... is it possible to see the picture of the whole instrument? And what color it would be?

[squid]

I had a brainwave for a tailpiece a couple of months ago. (I obsess over the 760J a bit. Does it show?) My thought was that the tailpiece should echo the truss rod cover. I also thought that it should be carved out of rosewood to match the fingerboard. The shape would constitute a curved, crescent shape almost identical to the truss rod cover but with the "point" of the crescent curving upwards. There would also be another crescent sort of "layered" below that with the point facing downwards. Essentially, if you were to take two truss rod covers, place them on top of one another, and then invert the one on top, that's the shape I'm getting at. It could be stylized somewhat for additional effect. I even thought that carving "Rickenbacker" into it might look good ... that might be a bit too showy, though ...

[leftybass]

A real beauty in the making, Paul. I'll put a vote in for finishing it in something similar to the ambered two-tone (Montezuma) brown used on the 360 SPC on ebay right now, and a simple trapeze...nothing to elaborate to take away from the carve of the body...it would seem to my eye that most of the aesthetics of the guitar lie in the wood and it's form.

I've always thought that the 390's made in the 50's were beautiful, and if it were mine I'd think toward a 'heritage' version of one of the two 50's models in JH's showroom.....

[jwilli]

Even an ambered MG would be great on this guitar. Cool to be a little different......