Ringo's walnut electric guitar

Walnut Electric

For your consideration: a handmade solid body electric guitar made from curly walnut and curly maple. One day I was randomly checking out some online wood suppliers and I came across a spectactular piece of walnut located in Oregon, USA. After a couple of phone calls and a charge on my visa card it made its way across the country to my workshop in lovely North Carolina. I took a couple of slices off with the bandsaw and made the electric guitar you see here.

For the electronics, I decided to go with Seymour Duncan pickups, partially because they have a nice reputation but mostly because they have a nice website where I can listen to the tone of each of their pickups in several settings, e.g. clean pickup at the neck, distorted at the bridge, etc. I spent several hours listening to everything they had, and decided on a nice warm sounding vintage-type pickup for the neck and a 'hot' modern pickup for the bridge. I had no idea how they would sound together, but I figured if I could get just two good sounds from this guitar that would be good enough for me. If those two tones could be combined like I imagined they would, that could really be something else, something special.

There's no doubt that mother nature blessed the walnut tree from whence this guitar came with some great figure (trust me, pictures don't do this wood justice), but no matter how great it looks, sound is what a guitar is really all about. When I wired everything up I admit I was a bit disappointed. Make no mistake, the thru-neck laminated maple design made for really nice sustain and the neck and bridge pickups by themselves sounded quite good: pretty much spot on with what I heard on the Seymour Duncan website, but when put together they sounded, well, quite like crap. Not only thin, but muddy as well, which I wouldn't think possible, but there it was. At some point I realized that even though they were from the same manufacturer, perhaps the pickups were internally wired out of phase with each other since they weren't designed to go in the same guitar. To test, I took out the soldering iron and switched the hot and ground wires on the bridge pickup, basically reversing the phase of one pickup in relation to the other. What a difference the new wiring made! The pickups were indeed cancelling each other out. Phased correctly these pickups sound great together... a wonderful warm jazz tone with great clarity: exactly what I was looking for. w00t! Oh well, enough talk, here's some pics:

It begins. Gluing up the laminated maple neck Maple and Walnut 'wings' will attach to the neck, which runs the length of the body All glued up... this is really a spectacular piece of curly walnut. Fortunately I have enough for 6 guitars! Where the neck and body meet, rough carved A spokeshave; my favorite tool to shape the neck

Here's a neat trick: If buddah falls off the guitar, I know I need to go slower or be more gentle with my tools What face to use for the volute? Maybe this one? Or this? Carving out the pickup cavities

A trick I came up with to cut slots in the nut. Instead of buying specialized, expensive, and difficult to use files, why not use old wound guitar strings to cut nut slots? A silver 'sun' medallion makes the volute look more like a volute and less like a cyst A layer of epoxy is used to fill the pores in the walnut. It is now ready for finishing. Peghead ready for finishing Curly maple back. The 'thru-neck' extends all the way through the body for extra stiffness and sustain

Hanging up after another layer of laquer Cavities carved out for the tuning machines Oooh, shiny Finished peghead Solid ebony knobs

Finished back Back Finished front Front closeup. I got sidetracked with an idea to make Japanese Maple 'leaflet' marquetry. This may show up as decoration in my next guitar


It begins. Gluing up the laminated maple neck	Maple and Walnut 'wings' will attach to the neck, which runs the length of the body	All glued up... this is really a spectacular piece of curly walnut. Fortunately I have enough for 6 guitars!	Where the neck and body meet, rough carved	A spokeshave; my favorite tool to shape the neck

Here's a neat trick: If buddah falls off the guitar, I know I need to go slower or be more gentle with my tools	What face to use for the volute?	Maybe this one?	Or this?	Carving out the pickup cavities

A trick I came up with to cut slots in the nut. Instead of buying specialized, expensive, and difficult to use files, why not use old wound guitar strings to cut nut slots?	A silver 'sun' medallion makes the volute look more like a volute and less like a cyst	A layer of epoxy is used to fill the pores in the walnut. It is now ready for finishing.	Peghead ready for finishing	Curly maple back. The 'thru-neck' extends all the way through the body for extra stiffness and sustain

Hanging up after another layer of laquer	Cavities carved out for the tuning machines	Oooh, shiny	Finished peghead	Solid ebony knobs

Finished back	Back	Finished front	Front closeup.	I got sidetracked with an idea to make Japanese Maple 'leaflet' marquetry. This may show up as decoration in my next guitar