Saturday, 16 July 2011

John McGee's Dragon - a one-off guitar built by one of our readers

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Here's one for ya! I call it "The Dragon."

The idea was to make a guitar into a stylized dragon. The body of the guitar is the wings spread with talons on the ends of the wings, hence the points. The headstock becomes the head of the beast and reflects the body horns (talons).

This is almost a semi-acoustic. The entire body is chambered except for the area under the pickups and bridge. The sides are about 3/8" thick - WAY thicker than a true semi-acoustic. By design, it has to be classified as a chambered solid body, but it's about as close as you can get without actually being there. I put a 1/8" cap on the back and front, which is more akin to a semi's thickness.

Continuing the dragon theme are the f-holes and 12th fret inlay. I was looking for something special to really set this one off and pronounce the theme visually while still at least trying to appear reserved and classy like a traditional semi-acoustic. I don't think it went too overboard, but I suppose that's all a matter of taste.

The body is poplar, the top, headstock faceplate, and inlays are bloodwood. The pickups are Airline reproductions of the P-35 "Kleenex box" pickups.

John McGee

[Note: John actually sent us this email and photos last October, and for some reason the blog post never made it further than the draft stage. Sorry about the delay, John! - G L Wilson]

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