Announcing Unified Guitar Works (aluminum/wood guitars)

[Hyphen Nation]

looks great, man!!!

[Decibill]

Thanks for all the props and kind words....!!! This is my livelihood now, so its all systems go. I've already got some new things in the works.....Any requests....??

[Chankgeez]

Not a request, but a question: How did you determine the thickness of the aluminum for the tops & backs?

[JereFuzz]

Wow! Awesome guitars with a compound radius to boot! Have you considered "loaning" one to YouTube gear demo celebs? Are you attending the next NAMM? How will they look "aged"?

[PeteeBee]

The arbiter. That is all. Seriously so hott.

[Decibill]

Not a request, but a question: How did you determine the thickness of the aluminum for the tops & backs?

Good question. There were several factors involved in this. The first was backing out of a final desired thickness dimension of around 1.75". The bamboo core comes in around 1.5". On one of my fist sets of prototypes I used .125" aluminum. This was wayyy to thick and way too heavy. So i trimmed down to .063" aluminum for the final proto's. This increased the resonance dramatically and shaved nearly 2 lbs off the weight, and all told, gets me close to the 1.75" desired thickness dimension.

[Decibill]

Wow! Awesome guitars with a compound radius to boot! Have you considered "loaning" one to YouTube gear demo celebs? Are you attending the next NAMM? How will they look "aged"?

HA hA....Funny you mention this, demoing by the "you tubez" stars. In fact, this very scenario is in the works...!! I expect the guitars to age nicely. The finish is a very durable, non-yellowing water bourn lacquer. Dings and drops that effect most electric guitars, will probably effect these too, some not as much others, but no more or worse than a typical wood electric. The aluminum may dent under heavy force, but it wont splinter....Bamboo is dense as hell, and isn't going to ding easily.

[Chankgeez]

Not a request, but a question: How did you determine the thickness of the aluminum for the tops & backs?

Good question. There were several factors involved in this. The first was backing out of a final desired thickness dimension of around 1.75". The bamboo core comes in around 1.5". On one of my fist sets of prototypes I used .125" aluminum. This was wayyy to thick and way too heavy. So i trimmed down to .063" aluminum for the final proto's. This increased the resonance dramatically and shaved nearly 2 lbs off the weight, and all told, gets me close to the 1.75" desired thickness dimension.

Nice. Thanks! It's always interesting hearing why builders choose to do things a certain way or how they choose to use their materials to get things sounding where they want.

[sylnau]

Those look really cool!

[JereFuzz]

Wow! Awesome guitars with a compound radius to boot! Have you considered "loaning" one to YouTube gear demo celebs? Are you attending the next NAMM? How will they look "aged"?

HA hA....Funny you mention this, demoing by the "you tubez" stars. In fact, this very scenario is in the works...!! I expect the guitars to age nicely. The finish is a very durable, non-yellowing water bourn lacquer. Dings and drops that effect most electric guitars, will probably effect these too, some not as much others, but no more or worse than a typical wood electric. The aluminum may dent under heavy force, but it wont splinter....Bamboo is dense as hell, and isn't going to ding easily.

Sweet! I have an aluminum Smith and Wesson revolver (Airweight) and it is light and tough (can handle thousands and thousands of rounds in its lifetime). But over time its matte finish starts to show wear. But it's not pure aluminum; it's an alloy. Anyway, I was listening to that Maven and it sounded great! I assume a case will be included with the guitars ...

[DRodriguez]

Would love to hear more cleans from these. Any chance at a zephyr clean demo?

[GuitarSlim101]

Ooo, those are lovely.

[rfurtkamp]

Curious as to the long-term stability of the bamboo for neck mounting et cetera.

Seen how bamboo stuff dries out badly over time on furniture and other stuff so it's a definite something I'd need to know before going down that road.

Also, as much as I like the Jazzmaster in the looks department, hate the LP-style switch placement (as someone who rests their hand on that bout a lot of the time while playing).

I accept it on a LP because, well, LP....but on a Jazzy, it makes me cry.

[JereFuzz]

Curious as to the long-term stability of the bamboo for neck mounting et cetera.

Seen how bamboo stuff dries out badly over time on furniture and other stuff so it's a definite something I'd need to know before going down that road.

Also, as much as I like the Jazzmaster in the looks department, hate the LP-style switch placement (as someone who rests their hand on that bout a lot of the time while playing).

I accept it on a LP because, well, LP....but on a Jazzy, it makes me cry.

Seems to do well for construction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_construction

[rfurtkamp]

Yea, looks like there's specific construction-grade bamboo though.