Sparkler Guitar

This is a guitar I built for my good friend Calea in exchange for my website. This guitar is made from hundreds of tiny pieces of maple. It has a 25.5 scale length, 24 Frets, Maple neck and fretboard, Maple Cap with an Alder Body. It is outfitted with 3 lipstick pickups wired with a 6 way rotary switch and Master Volume and Tone. Tuneomatic Bridge, Gotoh Tuners, Aluminum Nut. It looks unfinished, but I finished it with a hand rubbed Shellac finish to retain the whiteness of the Maple. This is one of my favorite guitars I've built so far, I'm super happy it's going to live with one of my best friends. If you haven't already, you can see the great work Calea does at www.holcombguitars.com

Walnut Glider Guitar

About 6 months ago, my upstairs neighbor, Brandi, approached me about building a custom guitar for her husband for their wedding anniversary  Vipul (her husband) had come down for a BBQ and had seen some guitars I was working on at the time. Unbeknownst to him, Brandi had already asked me to start thinking of ideas for the guitar she had ordered. He saw an older Glider Bass made of Walnut Wenge and Maple, and his interest in that was enough to give me an idea for an effective guitar translation. 

Vipul is a surfer so it was an obvious choice to emulate the linear laminated stripes of laminated wood surf boards. (Surfboard by Paul Jensen http://www.hollowsurfboards.com )

This Guitar is a 24 fret 25.5" scale with a tuneomatic bridge and floating tailpiece. The pickups are Seymour Duncan 57' Classics with chrome pickup rings for that added visual snap. The fretboard has a 14" radius. The electronics are a basic 1 volume, 1 tone, 3 way switch. The fretboard is curly Maple with Wenge inlays. The nut is graphite and the tuners are Gotohs. 

Glider Double Neck Bass

This Double Neck bass was quite an undertaking for me. Jost Eckhardt approached me about building him a double neck that featured small objects that would be worked into the body. I have always liked the look of small shadow boxes as frames so I suggested that we embed the objects in small rectangular cavities. Jost supplied me with a series of objects to work with. What we got was a very handsome mutant.

The body is Honduran mahogany with a series of shallow rectangles routed into the surface to hold the various objects. The top neck is a 30" short scale fretted bass with an ebony fretboard and a maple neck. This neck is outfitted with the standard J&MM pickup arrangement seen on standard Gliders.

The Bottom neck is Mahogany with a rosewood fretboard and a 34" fretless scale. The pickups are Fender Jazz Humbuckers. These pickups are fantastic for fretless bass. They have plenty of capacity for lowend but they are surprizingly clear and sensitive. 

Jost writes : "I love playing that bass. It's a stunning piece of art and it plays very nicely. The fretless neck plays and sounds almost like an upright. I may move to lower strings for this one - B, E, A, D. The fretted neck being short allows me doing chords and tapping and plays well with all my pedals. Thank you Nick for building it. Reminds me, "it" needs a name..." 

I'm rooting for "Handsome Mutant"

Bass Builder Guide

Just made a HUGE push to get an advertisement done for a new magazine called Bass Builder Guide. Click on the image to see a full size version of the ad. Bass Builder Guide is a magazine featuring Boutique Bass Builders and their work. You'll be able to find it in locations like Atlanta Bass Gallery, the Bass Emporium and many others.

Tabber Guitar

A couple weeks ago, Robert Sanchez from Music Everywhere approached me about helping him creating a "Tabber Guitar" You can read more details about the project here:

http://gizmodo.com/5884767/tabber-will-teach-shredding-essentials-with-a-light+up-fretboard

Yellowheart and Wenge 8 String in Progress

I've been steadily working on an 8 string bass for myself in between other projects. The through-neck has presented some unique difficulties paired with how I've been laminating all the pieces. I've approached the process fairly intuitively because of this. The geometric pattern top has to be attached separately from the through neck and the ash wings that are being glued on in these pictures.

The cutaway arm has a wenge and yellowheart piece laminated on to extend the patten of the top into the rest of the body. I chose that particular part of the guitar because of its visual and physical prominence. The headstock as pictured will have a cap put on it that matches the body's top.

Geometric Top

I've recently embarked on an exciting new self initiated project. Basically, I've been dying to make something using wenge and yellowheart exclusively. The idea is that this is going to be a top and headstock plate for an 8 string bass that will be mine.

You can see the process photos below of different pattern arrangements, but this first one here is the pattern I'm going to go with.

Its going to be a neck through, this laminated arrow design will most likely not be seen very much, but I think it will be a nice snappy detail that you'll catch in glimpses of.