The Latest Tabletop Guitar Build

A couple of Saturdays ago, I spent the afternoon cutting out three guitar bodies with my band saw. I figured I might as well cut out a few, so that I could easily work on them as time permitted. The body on the left, in the picture above, was cut from the same school desk top from which I built Ted Intorcio's "School's Out" guitar. I used the lighter colored top of the desk as the front of his guitar, but I liked the look of the bottom of the piece for this one.

Ted's guitar...

The other two bodies in that same picture were cut from a vintage piece of milled lumber (probably 1950s) which my buddy Eric Chavez gave to me, quite a while ago. I think it is pine, though it is so aged and so welled dried that it has no scent when you cut it.

I mocked the guitar up on the floor of the shop building, just to get a feel for what it would look like, once done.I decided that a bar-type tailpiece would suit better than a trapeze, just due to the thinness of the wood. How to mount the controls remained to be seen.

The pickup is a Gretsch lap-steel unit which I bought off of eBay.I've read numerous accounts of people using lap-steel pickups to build guitars, especially in the old days, so I thought I would give it a shot. I figured that, if I didn't like it, I could always swap it for something else and use this pickup to build an actual lap-steel.

The two rails on which the pickup sits are liner strips from a cigar box guitar. They not only got the pickup height to where I needed it, but they also provided an easier mounting than screwing into the rock-hard work of the desk top.

I scavenged a neck from an Epiphone Les Paul Special which I had bought for parts. I will sand the face of the headstock to remove the logo, once I get some better tuners to install on it. The stock Epi tuners leave a bit to be desired. I'll probably throw a bone nut on it at that time, as well.

The volume pot and the output jack are both taller than the body is thick, so I elevated them above the  face of the guitar, much as I did on the very first Tabletop Guitar.

TTG #1

On that first guitar, I used pick guard material to elevate them. But, on this guitar, I wanted to stick to an all-wood face.

The same cigar box which supplied the pickup mounting rails also supplied a piece of its bottom to act as a mounting plate. The plate is screwed to the body through two Monkey Shoulder Scotch corks and one from a bottle of whiskey whose name I forgot.

I left the pickup wire exposed for a couple of reasons: It not only suits the "made in a barn" aesthetic of the guitar but, also, I may want to reposition the pickup, at some point. Having the wire easily accessible would make that a bit simpler.

The Thursday after I finished the guitar, I took it to the Englewood tavern and played slide on it during the open mic which I host. It has a sound which is distinct from the first of these I built, which was made out of Maple, with a P-90 pickup. I wanted a different sound, from the same configuration. No sense in havingtwo guitars which are exactly the same!

I may actually find myself playing this one in Standard Tuning, and using the other for slide.

Anyway, I was well-pleased with how it came out. I really like parlor guitar-sized body with the full-scale neck. I might actually build another, and set the neck with a 16th-fret junction of the neck and body so that I have more usable frets. With the 14-fret junction, you are a bit limited in the upper octaves.


x