Official Luthiers Forum!

i am not suppose to use my right due to surgery today, so no caps, and possible lots of spelling mistakes.

i have followed most of preeb's lp build over on the telecaster forum, and in thr process of time, another poster brought up the ethical question of building copies of guitars that can be mistaken fo the reak thing, assuming someone would, or be capable of such a task. that thread quickly broke away from the op's thought and then moved into "what we do is no different " with all the copies of "choose guitar name". this got me to thinking sbout ethics and what they mean to me personally, plus the fact i have had two product designs stolen from me by the public snd the rerlated industry, and i know how sick i feel each time i see a new company introduce a blatanr copy of my products.

with all that said, i re-designed the tele and here it is. tell me if it has merits opr not. feel free to copy it if you like, and soon i will offer printas and cad data for it. i was commissioned to build a tele for a friend's son and went to the father with the ethical question and he said use the new design.

i also want to do this as a carve top and have been pestering Filippo and Parser about how to achieve it.

here it is with the top chosen for the first one, which is a flat top, using mostly tele-ish components.



mike

filippo can you sketch in it paint or something?

Hey Mike, I like where you are going with this, because to me it is starting to look like a Gibson explorer a little bit.
Very subtle, but there.
The thing is that people like familiar designs that aren't too out there.
Kind of like music, know what I mean?
Anyway, I'm with Filippo on the bottom horn.
I think instead of a swoop from the body to the end of the horn, on the top of it, it should be straighter,
think explorer.
My 2 stinkin' cents.
Nice walnut!!!!

Something similar to this?

Mike

I totally agree. Nice concept.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

I vote for the newer shape too....it seems more coherent?

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Personally I liked the first lower cutaway better and thought the upper horn just needed a little tweaking.

Don't shorten the cut-away. Telecaster players love that cut away depth. The modeled change isn't worth having if it's just a notch like Turmite has suggested. At least to me. It looks more like a plank rather then a guitar.

I think the issue is symmetry. My thought would be to leave the cut-away as it is in your original but shorten the horn to match the line of your upper bout top shoulder. Looks to be about a inch or more worth of horn that you can amend. That way the lines line up to to bottom better. Adds more uniformity to your design.

That upper horn looks odd and out of sync with the lower half of the shape, just on the verge of too pointy. One of my pet peeves. If you have a soft flowing lines for you lower bout you can't have a sharp curve for the upper bout and your on the edge.

It's ok to quote your favorite shapes but not copy exactly. Look at the PRS single cut and the Les Paul. PRS got taken to court and while Gibson won the initial court ruling in Nashville (home court advantage), PRS won the appeal.

If you amend the shape too much it looks like a futuristic square and not an tip of the hat to your inspirations shape, and you'll loose out on marketability as the shape is now to far out of the consumers idea of "the norm." The tip of the hat is what your after and what your trying to sell. My favorite thing to do is layer my favorite shapes and then meet in the middle of what I like. Take a Tele shape and your current shape and pick points that are in between where you are now. Then make a proto body blank out of 2X4's. You might find that "your corners are too square" or you might want to "change the line here" to help it balance better. Keep at it, if your asking input now that means you know it doesn't balance well to your eye, it'll get there.

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Todd Lunneborg
http://www.tlguitars.com/
http://www.fretboardjournal.com/

Being a telelover. I love the "tweak" either way. i think its really cool and it reminds me of a great combination of two or three guitars!

Ok guys, here are the options, and please keep in mind, I am also wanting to do this as a carve top option. I know anything symetrical will be easier for the 3d modeling, but that should not be a reason for choosing a double cut! In fact, I won't do this flat top guitar as a double cut since I am trying to get close to a Tele.



The red outline is the original.

To address tguitars statement: " Keep at it, if your asking input now that means you know it doesn't balance well to your eye, it'll get there." Yes there was something I could not put my finger on on the cut away horn and was part of my reason for asking.

Please keep in mind, I can't ask the young man who is going to recieve this guitar, and his dad doesn't know the difference between a Tele or a LesPaul. I actually like the topside horn and it's funky angle but maybe that is what was throwing the overall feel off.

Mike

Upper left hand corner.
Dat my fav.

Your welcome.

And if you like the bass side horn, perfect. It's your design and the first rule is you should only build what you like. Shortening the horn ties your upper bout sides together better. They make sense together now as the horn stops where the left side plunges to.

Sounds like you got what you need.

Glad I could help.

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Todd Lunneborg
http://www.tlguitars.com/
http://www.fretboardjournal.com/

oh....the best laid plans of mice and men! I got up early this morning with new vigor after having two stents placed in my lower decending on Friday. Felt like a new man......till around 8:30am.

I had driven into town to have my car worked on, went to a restaurant next door to have breakfast while they were doing the work, and then something happened in my chest! Long story short, I took an ambulance ride to the ER and spent the day in the hospital taking tons of blood thinners.

I had planned to cut the parts for this guitar today, glue them up and post pics late this evening! Instead, I am going to take it easy!

Maybe tomorrow!

Mike

Please do take it easy. I hope everything works out good. You are in my prayers.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Guys here is the carve top version of the most voted version, "upper left". Tell me what you think. I had to have some help to get the top to this point of modeling, and may have to have some more....Rhino experts! Lord willing, I hope to carve one of these by Saturday either out of Mesquite or what I think is ribbon stripe Sapele.

The flat top version will be wearing the top already shown in the first image.



Mike

Cool discussion - I also like the outlined version, with one suggestion. What if the "line" of the upper horn is congruent with the line of the inside of the cutaway?? Not sure I'm describing my thought sufficiently, but I'm envisioning a continuous line, as if you place a ruler on the line of the upper horn as it approaches the neck, and this line overlaps and is the same, continuous line where the cutaway meets the neck. For my thinking, this would be more graceful.

Hi Corky,

I did that but it made the cut away too shallow, I could have drawn the upper horn back a little to help. I have posted this on here and on the Telecaster forum and by far, the upper left version is #1. I had to have a version quickly as I am going to attempt to build this in a little over a week. Not by choice, but due to necessity. My wife has been battling cancer for nearly three years, and I have been, and will be her primary care giver, and would not have it any other way. Two weeks ago we got some really bad news, and without our faith in God, would have no hope......but with Him, there is always hope.

That said, I am behind big time on getting this done on a self imposed deadline of Christmas Day.

Mike