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"Dichrocaster" - a laser cut Guitar
Laser for much, but traditional tools for most. The body is back-textured and backpainted 1/4" acrylic, laser cut for all pickup, Floyd Rose Tremolo Bridge, switches, knobs and neck opening, then flush trimmed around a squire body in which I milled off 1/4" off its face so finished face is original level.
The neck was lasered for inlays, and the inlays were lasered with same cut file. Next time I will enlarge the inlays a tad more, as the laser burned a wider "kerf" that I expected. The knobs were laser cut from black acrylic then overlayed with a dichroic lens in which the lettering was lasered, then paint filled.
The headstock was also lasered with logo and signature, then paint filled. Pretty white knuckle, as I knew I only had one shot at it, and the test panel turned out perfect. As it turned out, the white lacquer wrinkled the cut edge of the two day cured 2K urethane, and looked like crap. SO then was a REALLY white knuckle re-lasering over top, which did not index perfectly, but this time I used waterbased white paint. Should have done that from the beginning.
The guitar was kindof built around the Floyd Rose, which had the rainbow dichroic PVD plating as a special finish. Thus, all the dichroic pigments and dichroic materials used in the build complement it perfectly. A bit much, one would say, but not when you are addicted to color.
Next one will be all gold and silver pearls on a texture that simulates quilted maple, and the hardware will be all gold. Looking at thermofoming the acrylic for an archtop too.
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Quilted silver guitar and quilted carbon fiber
The first of the new builds came out awesome. My buddy Steve Raz is the lead guitarist for E5C4P3, the best Journey tribute band, and gigs with it regularly now. Bummer, is that I was planning on introducing this acrylic version of the "quilted" figure at NAMM, but then figured out how to use my quilt molds to texture Carbon Fiber, and ended up getting a patent on it, as it can be directly glued to wood - same directional expansion / contraction as wood. It actually has higher luster and is an "exaggerated" version of real quilt figure due to its higher light refraction off the fibers.
Then made another mold in a "fiddleback" figure, and using it as the fingerboard on the quilted CF guitar. Now this one is going to NAMM.
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