Project: Super-Thin pt1

The idea is to see how thin you can make a guitar and still be functional, good sounding, and good playing. A good friend of mine is working on a surface-mount pickup, taking design inspiration from an old Teisco pup I sent him. The hardware will be mini-pots and a hard tail bridge.

The piece of white limba I have for the body is EXACTLY 1" thick. It's just barely not wide enough to have a 1-piece body, so pieces from the blank will have to be glued onto the widest parts of it. I'm going with a traditional Strat-like shape. With the body being so thin and lightweight, I figure to need the strap anchor pretty far forward. Under normal circumstances, the 12th-15th fret is the target. As it stands right now, it might fall near the 11th. We'll just wait and see on that one.

The neck will need to be pretty lightweight as well. I picked up a 2" thick piece of Spanish cedar. It's used in acoustics, so the strength should be fine. It's also stupid-light. The body blank uncut weighs about the same as the 2" thick piece of cedar. No neck dive on this one.

I really wanted to do a back-bolt on this one, but it's just too thin. The surface mount pups would eliminate the normal routes taking away material for the bolts to go into. However, the body itself will be too thin. Oh well - a set neck it is.

The edges are going to be beveled, though not very deep. The body will be getting dyed turquoise. I'm not positive about the type of finish yet.

It'll be getting a white pickguard into which all of the electronics will be mounted. This will save depth in the already shallow body.

The headstock is going to be very similar to the Parker Fly.