For thousands of years luthiers have repaired and created instruments to support musicians in doing what they do. With each generation the skill and art is passed down from one to another. Getting more kids interested in building, repairing and modding their guitars is fundamental to keeping the guitar vibrant and full of unique tone. In the interview below we spoke with Elias Turner, whose dad is a luthier and who decided to mod a Strat as part of a school project.
So what got you started on this process?
“Although I’ve been surrounded by music my whole life, I didn’t start playing until two years ago. I started on ocarina, a kind of clay flute, and after about a year I moved to ukulele, then guitar, than a bit of mandolin, and now to banjo. I have always liked building things, and my dad is a guitar maker, so once I started playing, making instruments seemed like a logical step.
I am very lucky in that my school, San Dieguito Academy, is one of the few schools that still has a metal shop, wood shop, and auto shop. The wood shop teacher, Jeff Germono, decided to try his hand at electric guitar making a few years back, and now teaches it as an elective course. I entered the course wanting to build an eclectic ukulele version of my dad’s Renaissance line of guitars; however, the course was focused on building a Strat style instrument. I decided to follow a semi standard rout and make a Strat to get my skills up to snuff before attempting a wholly original design.”
“I am personally not a fan of the Strat body shape, so I decided to make an instrument with the most different and original design I could, while still keeping the core design of a Strat. The design was inspired by an earlier design I made for an electric violin body, also made of copper pipe, as well as my dad’s “Pretzel” guitar. The original concept was to make the whole body pipe except a central section, essentially an extension of the neck. I hit a dead end on this path due to the positioning of the electronics compartment on a Strat. I mocked it up in Solid Works, and removed as much wood as I could while not moving any routs. The result looked like a kidney and was quickly scraped. This is where the inspiration went from violin to pretzel.”
“I spent about a month messing with the design on my computer. I experimented with possible cutaway shapes, different curvatures for the pipes, and even headstock shapes. When my dad came down from Santa Cruz to visit he helped me refine and simplify my design to something that could actually be made.”
What has been your greatest challenge?
“Before starting this project, most of my design experience was in more industrial applications, and robotics. Moving from metal to wood has been a great challenge in that with robotics and other such applications, the final product is made of many separate pieces, instead of only a few components as in electric guitar making. I have had to learn about hand tooling, and ordering of steps.”
“I have also had to learn a different mentality. When building a robot everything must be perfect and in its place. With woodworking, it is necessary to leave room for the imperfections of the wood. As long as the scale length is correct, and the action and intonation are adjusted properly, it’s ok if the electronics cavity is off by 1/16 inch. When I started this project I was thinking like a robotics engineer. Everything had to be just like the Solid Works or it was wrong. I’ve started to break away from this way of thinking, and find wood working to be relaxing in comparison.”
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