Doing Things Wrong

Danelectro Companion Guitar

This was a box of junk I got on eBay, originally a vintage Convertible. I replaced the front and back with cabinet-grade birch plywood, as the original mother-of-countertop material is no longer available. I rebuilt it as something like a Companion, which is a very rare model. The neck and sides are vintage, the rest is modern.

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The black edging is Sharpie marker. I had to apply the polyurethane finish very gingerly over that to keep it from running until it was well sealed. The pickguard is cut down from a reissue.

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This is an original Companion, with real fake wood countertop faces. You can see how the ends of the Tolex are butted together under the strap button. I think my way is neater. I couldn't get the correct bridge and tailpiece, so I made due with what I had. The problem with these is that there is no block to support the top under the bridge, and they tend to collapse. Mine is actually a better design.

At the last minute before I closed it up forever,
it occurred to me to take some pictures.

I added a block to support the bridge and keep the top from collapsing. As I recall, the sides are not bent wood, they are sawn to that shape. The frame pieces are held together by a few staples and the binding. I took the front off first and put a new one on. When that was set up, I did the back, as you see here. Otherwise the whole thing might have fallen apart.


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rat's nest

One of the fun things about building electric guitars is wiring them up. Factory wiring tends to be simple, minimizing the amount of fussy handwork required. Many manufacturers keep strictly to 'classic' designs, seldom if ever changing anything. These designs are generally simplistic, often crude or even stupid, and sometimes outright flawed. There is no need for you to do this. I don't. Here are some of the things I have done over the years. I don't claim to have invented any of this, although some of these schematics I have never seen anywhere else, and had to derive them myself.

Printed from luthierylabs.com