Brian's Guitar from Conception to Birth or How to Build a Guitar in 62 Easy Steps!
Appendix E - The Portfolio
On the next few pages are the pretty photographs of Brian’s guitar with a few brief descriptions hitting the highlights. You don’t need anything too fancy to get some good photos of your guitar. All of these photos were taken with an old-school 35mm film camera and they were developed straight to a CD in digital format. They were taken without a flash (avoiding unpredictable hot spots), with a high F-stop (for a greater field of focus), and at slow shutter speeds (requiring a tripod). My makeshift spray booth doubled as the photo studio since it already had four 300 watt light fixtures which I amended with two more 500 watt shop lights. Needless to say it was a bit warm in there. The backdrop was a piece of 6'x12' black felt stapled to a wood 1x2 for support. The shot to the right is the standard catalog shot: straight on. It reveals our blatant plagiarism of the Paul Reed Smith body style and McNaught neck inlays. I find the angled, perspective shots below a bit more dynamic. You can see a little detail of the carved top, but it shows up a little better in some of the photos coming up later.
The detailed shots above show the cool scooped out areas at the knobs. They really look nicely nestled in there. The carved top is a bit more evident here. The right photo above starts to show how the neck is tilted back from the face of the body, which can be noticed by the different pickup bezel heights.
A couple of custom touches can be found in the details. The jack plate is recessed into the side of the guitar, and the strap lock is seated on a flattened area or the horn.
Rolling the guitar over, you’ll find the luxurious, silky mahogany. The control cavity cover plate is almost seamless since it was made from matching wood. The neck heal is adorned with lacewood which matches the headstock veneer.
The rear string ferrules are recessed in a bed of lacewood. And perhaps being overly anal, I recessed the cover plate for the battery compartment. The abalam neck inlays are simple, but lend a contemporary flair. They really pop out on the ebony fretboard. The fretboard is bound with quilted maple and the neck is finished with tung oil.
Of note on the lacewood-veneered headstock is the lack of truss rod cover mounting screws providing an almost invisible installation. On the rear is the unique carved transition from the neck to the headstock. Brian sees it as a bird’s eyes and beak. You can see the truss rod cover mounting screw on top of this area. Everything is topped off with locking tuners in a satin chrome finish.