This guitar started life as a $150 kit from StewMac (which they don't sell anymore) that I got to work on my skillz. If I screwed it up it wouldn't be a big deal. The parts were cheap, but the body wood was suprisingly nice. I finished the body and neck with light amber shellac, put it together. It's much lighter than my Fender American Standard which is a thing I immediately became a big fan of. I hated a bunch of other aspects about it though, especially the 6 screw bridge, so I started looking to replace parts.

The body is thiner than stock so getting a bridge was a challenge. I eventually found the SuperVee BladeRunner has an option for a short block so I picked one up. I really dig the BladeRunner, and have used it on other instruments. Fender noisless pickups and StewMac premium wiring kit make it sound very Strat like. Gotoh locking mini tuners and Pure Tone multi-contact jack.

I decided to try refretting the neck, which I did successfully, but it wasn't a very good job. Part of that is my lack of skills, but the bad job done on the fret slots initially certainly didn't help. I replaced the neck with a Warmoth canarywood/rosewood Warhead modern construction neck which is great. While putting it on I had issues, and I eventually discovered that the screw holes in the body weren't perpendicular. Nice! Also, the neck pocket is too deep. But that's what you get with a cheap kit. Some quick work with the drill press though and a plate to raise the neck, and now everything goes together well.

Over time I've replaced everything except the body, and that will happen eventually (I already have a "bacon" body, just need to do the work) which will complete it's transformation into a Stratocaster of Theseus.

7lbs 2oz

Warmoth Velocity body with roasted alder chambered core, birdseye maple top, Honey Burst finish. Routed for humbuckers with an unfinished Warmoth tiltback 3+3 Canary wood/Rosewood Gibson scale neck. This guitar fills the hardtail HH slot in my collection replacing the LP Studio.

The controls are in a Volume/Volume/Tone configuration. I may eliminate the neck pickup from the tone knob, but for now that's how it is. The neck may be unfinished, but I spent considerable time sanding/polishing the back of it and it's very smooth. I enjoy this style of finishing necks and will be converting most my instruments to something similar.

7lbs 1oz

full specs

Warmoth finally made the previously limited run Meadowhawk body and neck generally available on 27 May 2025, and I ordered one on day one while it was still in the "soft launch" phase. Amber dye on quilted maple top with a roasted maple Meadowhawk neck. I opted for simple master volume and tone controls as I can always add more knobs later if I want.

This is my P90 guitar, but uses the smaller and cooler looking TV Jones T90s. I don't really know if they are just like P90's, but it's what I went with. I don't really dig the sound of them turned up, but rolling the volume down to 7ish cleans things up and they sound much better. I need to play with them a lot more to figure em out.

7lbs 2oz

Warmoth Thinline body and maple/rosewood Tele neck. I set it up with Seymor Duncan Tele Vintage Stack pickups, Gotoh locking mini tuners, StewMac premium wiring kit, and a bone nut. It looks and plays nice, and sounds like a Tele. Although I'm not a big fan of the Tele shape, with it's hard edges and such, I've been getting used to it. It is nice and light weight, but as originally setup the balance is off (it suffers from "neck dive") which is annoying.

I rigged up a Bigsby B5 via a Vibramate, which has been an interesting experiment. The Bigsby is a very different device which requires quite a heavy hand and the Vibramate is great for trying it out, but is not a long term solution. The bridge sits too high, and I hear some vibration. The weight at the end did help the balance though. This instrument doesn't have wood under where the Bigsby would be, but I believe that can be solved using threaded inserts if I decide to mount it permanently. I replaced the bridge with a Van Dyke-Harms bridge, but it's not heavy enough to change the balance.

full specs

6lbs 3.5oz

I wanted a bass, and this Yamaha fit the bill. Cheap! I've been getting a little more serious about my bass playing and am doing YouTube lessons from BassBuzz. My goal is to be able to lay down lines that would be good enough for an open mic blues jam. Music complexity wise this is easy stuff, but it's challenging my rhythm and forcing me to lock in with the drums as well as maintaining awareness of what the other instruments are doing. There's a lot of responsibility being in the rhythm section, and it'll be a bad night if the bass player trainwrecks the groove and the band gets beer bottles thrown at them.

7lbs 1oz

Antique violin sunburst and rosewood appointments. I was looking for something to play old timey music along with an existing 3 piece acoustic group at Civil War reenactments. The mandolin isn't period correct, but hey, neither is an acoustic bass nor dreadnought steel string guitar. We play after the public hours so it's no big deal. I've learned most of the major open and movable chord shapes and am working on minor along with the major and pentatonic scales which is way more than enough to chop along with simple tunes. It's been a little brain bending working with an instrument tuned in 5ths, but a fun challenge.

Purchased November 2025

To amplify my guitars I've settled on mix of effect pedals, amp/speaker modelers, and a FR (flat response) amplifier. I really like the classic look of the Fender Tone Master FR-10, and the weight is very appealing compared to a traditional amp, especially a tube amp. So far I have no regrets.

The amp modelers and effects from UA (Universal Audio) are very nice. They're digital which makes them very configurable and upgradable. Eventually UA will stop supporting them in software which will freeze them in time, but this isn't really any different from analog effects that are frozen in time the moment they're made unless you're into hardware mods. I had thought about using a full digital multi-effects rig like the Line 6 Helix, but these have so many settings that you can spend all your time messing with them. I like real knobs, the ability to mix and match digital and analog, and the reduction in complexity. The Paradox of Choice is a real thing, and even this limited setup has too much. Like all pedalboards though, it's permanently in flux.

My instrument building abilities got a massive uplift when I went to Portland OR and took a class in acoustic guitar building from the master luthier Charles Fox at his American School of Lutherie (AKA his shop in his house). To call this experience transformative would be an understatement. I went from total hacker with no idea what I was doing to actually having some skills and knowledge. I started with flat wood and 2 weeks later (10hrs a day for 11 days with a Sunday off in the middle) had a functioning acoustic guitar. My guitar has numerious little flaws, the setup still sucks, but it is my primary acoustic guitar to this day.

After the class I spent a lot of time playing around with acoustic building ... jigs and tooling, creating various pieces and parts, reading books about lutherie. Charles was very complimentary of my work and told me I "had the talent". My life however took a turn in a different direction, and I didn't have the bandwidth to make the massive investment it would take to be serious about becoming a professional luthier. Alas, it was not ment to be.

In the early 90s I traded my first electric guitar, a Yamaha Pacifica, for this mid-80s American Standard Stratocaster. For years this was my only guitar. Somewhere around 2010 I had it serviced by Keith Holland Guitars in Los Gatos CA who leveled the frets and installed a Buzz Fenton nut. It's kinda heavy, and once I built the Strat of Theseus I stoped playing it.

I had put a Warmoth neck on it and was going to replace the bridge with a BladeRunner to have a strat I could keep tuned to Eb, but I took the stock bridge off and found that the posts were screwed directly into the body. Odd that. Curious, I did some research and have identified this instrument as part of the first wave of American Standard's built in the Post CBS era, likely sometime in late 1986 or early 1987. This is based on several specific features:

• The serial number (E451xxx)
• 2 point bridge with wood screw posts
• 4 bolt neck plate
• Micro-tilt adjustment
• 43mm nut
• 9.5" radius fretboard

According to Claude.ai

[The features] All point definitively to an early American Standard Stratocaster from the first production year. This was a pivotal model in Fender's history - the first major redesign after the company was purchased from CBS by its employees in 1985. These early American Standards are historically significant as they represent Fender's return to higher quality standards. They introduced several innovations that remain on Stratocasters to this day, including the 2-point tremolo system and the 9.5" radius fingerboard. ... Some collectors specifically seek these early post-CBS models because they represent the beginning of the modern Fender era. This is a more valuable instrument than a typical mid-1980s Stratocaster because it's from this specific transition period. The 1987 American Standard Stratocaster has become recognized as an important model in Fender's history.

So ... I have a guitar with "historical significance". Oh JOY! I've returned it to stock and now that I'm not going to be playing it I need to figure out what to do with it.

8lbs 1oz

I bought this amp to have something with that "Marshall Sound". Originally paired with a 4x12 cab that I sold because the whole thing was loud AF and I don't intend to play in the type of venues that would require such a setup. It blew a tube early on and I used with with 2 @50watts, but eventually replaced the whole set bringing it back up to it's full 100 watt power. I currently run it through a Waza TAE (Tube Amp Extender) that does basic effects and speaker/mic modeling.

1.5 watts of pure POWER! This was a kit from Torres Amplifiers, which used to be located in San Mateo, CA. Class A 6005 amp with 12AX7 tubes. I built this on the dining room table in my small condo over a weekend. I didn't really know what I was doing, and I'm sure I'd be horrified by the soldering job today. But it works and I occasionally use it as a practice amp.

The first guitar I ever "owned" I got from some music store (there's some debate on if it was a store or independent person) in Sacramento as a rent-to-own. I played it for awhile, but being a poor college student I got behind on the payments and eventually just returned it as I was more interested in electric guitars anyway. Somewhere there's a recording of my friend Dan and I playing a very simple song together and thinking ourselves very cool. This is the only known photo I have of the instrument.

When I was first learning to play guitar in 1992 I purchaed a Yamaha Pacifica from a local music store in my home town of Sacramento (probably Skips). They had a ton of them and they were pretty cheap. I had no idea what I was doing, and eventually traded it in at a small shop in San Luis Obispo that I think was called Blue Note Music for my mid-80s Fender American Standard. In retrospect this really wasn't an upgrade, and I could have stuck with the Yamaha and been just fine as it was actually pretty nice. I have yet to find a photo of this guitar, but if I do I'll post it.

In 1999 (or there abouts) I purchased a black Les Paul Studio because I wanted a hardtail HH guitar and the Les Paul is the iconic incarnation. Over the years I made various tweaks to it: Gotoh tuning machines, BWB pickguard, StewMac premium wiring kit, Speed knobs, Pure Tone multi-contact jack. It played fine, but I just didn't dig the weight nor the ergonomics. I sold it via consignment at Banana's At Large in Santa Rosa, CA.

8lbs 10oz

I've been intrigued with the Warmoth Dinkycaster ever since it was introduced. I also want an instrument with Filter'Tron pickups. Then I got inspired by @Ricks Firecaster III that he posted on the Unofficial Warmoth Forum, and decided to take some of his ideas and go for it. The "inferno" flake is far more bling-e than I normally go for, but I think it'll be great. I'm going to put a couple of TV Jones Classic pickups in it.

While I ordered a body with "extra light" wood, the body as delivered came in at a rather portly 4lbs 3.4ozs. Quite disappointing to say the least, and I'll be sending a question into Warmoth about how this happened. I'm also abandoning using a tele-style control setup as I don't want to add the extra weight of the plate. Instead I'm going to use a Switchcraft in the upper horn mounted on a pickguard. The pickguard will also hide a significant amount of the body, so I can possibly lighten the load with some creating routing. Not the way I would have gone, but somethings gotta be done about little piggy.

I'm going to pair it with one of my existing Strat replacement necks. Once I get a handle on how it feels I'll look into other options (like a Gibson scale)

full specs

I've been trying to figure out a way to incorporate a Warmoth WGD body into the collection. After learning about Jerry's various incarnations I decided to skip any kind of direct copy and go for something rather different. I love Koa and am now working on ideas for a WGB with Koa top. The Koa is sourced and I more or less know what I'm going to do with the WGD body. The plan is to plane the top, carve forearm and tummy cut contours, use a thin layer of maple vaneer to get a white trim edge, then bend and glue the Koa to it. Just need to decide on the pickups before ordering it. An open questions is "to trem or not to trem?".

The first instrument I made was a Saga Telecaster kit. It was awful. I used blue spray paint from the hardware store to "finish" it (I use that term lightly, as the result wasn't anything resembling even a half-assed acceptable finish for a guitar). The wood was crap. The hardware was crap. I had no idea what I was doing, but it was cheap and I got my feet wet. I never really played it (I had a real electric guitar), and eventually just tossed it, keeping some of the hardware for other experiments. Maybe someday I'll find a picture of it, which will help me establish an accurate date.

I built this little "mandolin" as a toy for my then 3yr old son. Carved cocobolo (I think) top, mahogany back and sides and neck with ebony fretboard. It sort of plays. I could turn it into a real instrument, but it would take a lot of work and setup to get it there and there's no way it would ever sound good. It does however make a nice wall decoration.

I created this parlor sized acoustic guitar over the course of many (many) years. Heavy and weird and totally unfinished, it eventually got to a playable state. The structure and bracing is very unconventional. My goal was to create a fully active top, which is why the neck is cantilevered over the soundboard and the sound holes are on the shoulders. I totally love how the sound holes look, but bending the purfling was a huge PITA. I think I'll have to cut the curve first, glue in the purfling, then do the bending which will require me to invent some precise bending techniques. I hated the tail piece though, and will go a different direction.

If I ever get back to acoustic building I'll take what I learned from this for my next project. I'll try to keep a small size, but will likely increase the volume in the lower bout. I'll also go the other direction and make everything too thin/light to see how far I can push that. I may adopt a wedge shape a la Linda Manzer, but that's TBD.

I went to the pipe/cigar store, bought a bunch of cigar boxes and made this guitar from one of them. Totally low tech, but fun. The neck, which goes thorugh the body, is made of cherry. It's super thick and doesn't have a trussrod. The nut is tall which sets the action very high (I made it for slide). The bridge is a piece of aluminum tubing and you just put it in the "right place". The pickup is home wound and encased in epoxy. Very janky and raw, but totally playable.

I also made this winder to wind the pickup. It's what took the longest of the whole project! Arduino based with Pololu motor controller. The disc on the right is white/black and I have an optical sensor next to it which allows me to count the windings and show it on the display. The dial controls the speed.

I made this little piano when I was 5 or 6. The legs are twigs that I found in my grandparents yard and carfully tapped nails through. As the story goes, my grandfather was quite impressed and proud of my tenacity and care in making this little thing. He passed when I was very young, and I don't have many memories of him, but I remember the joy and fun I'd have playing and making things in their garage/shop. If I try I can still smell the place; the weird combination of wood, old timey electronics (my grandfather built a tube based intercom system in the house), wax, my grandmothers painting supplies, oil and mechanical things. For me, that's the smell of childhood.

In my mind he could build anything (for example the house my grandparents lived in), and he remains my spiritual inspiration for making things.