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Post subject: Re: Hand Carved Guitar Bodies
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 6:16 pm
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Hi guys. It's me again. Sorry it has been so long since my last post on this subject. But I thought it might help you guys that seem to be all stressed out about this carved guitar thing, if you knew a little more about the history of electric guitar carving . I have been playing guitar for about 50yrs now, since I was about 11yrs old. When I looked into this whole carved guitar body thing a few years back, I found that the original guitar carver seems to be this guy who was originally Steve Martin's room mate when he first moved to CA ,back in the 70's or 80's. His name is Doug Rowell. He carved Steve Martin's banjo for him back then (body and neck) because he didn't have the money for his half of the rent and he has been carving guitars and other things ever since. If you want to check out his website here's the link... http://www.carverdoug.com/
There are other guys carving guitar bodies now. But as far as I know, Doug was the original one. In fact, most of the carved guitar bodies you see, that are done on cnc machines, that are being sold cheap online, are people who are copying his designs. You can also see an interview with him where he tells the whole story of being Steve Martin's room mate and how he got started doing the carving thing, on youtube . Just go there and type in his name.
Anyway, I think it's a very interesting story and a very "Rock N' Roll" one....and I do believe that it's up to the individual how he dresses on and off stage, how he wears his hair or what he plays for a guitar, carved or not....and as far as the wood that is removed during the carving process rendering the guitar tonally or resonantly unplayable is just crazy. I know because I own one myself and I love it. Of course, I still and always will feel that the best electric guitar designs of all time were and are Fender"s American Stratocaster and American Telecaster ....and most everything else is just pale imitations of these 2 designs. So thanks Fender for making the best electric guitars in the world and making them with easily replaceable parts.


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Post subject: Re: Hand Carved Guitar Bodies
Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 6:37 am
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Welcome back blufenderbender. Thanks for the link. Interesting story and concept, thanks for posting. For me a different look would be to paint it black or cover the guitar body with hand-tooled leather. Both of those are my favorites. Of course this is IMHO YMMV (to quote my favorite Martian)

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.


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Post subject: Re: Hand Carved Guitar Bodies
Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 11:06 am
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Thanks for the reply , Solid Body Love Songs. I have seen the carved bodies done in black, that dark red color they stain mahogany and in sunbursts and then shot with like a nitro clear coat and they are beautiful done that way. If my guitar finishing skills were a little better I might do the other carved tele body I have that way. Not sure how someone would wet sand something like that to get that glassy look to the gloss finish tho....hahaha? Maybe a lot of buffing , huh? I have also seen guitar bodies that aren't carved that were upholstered with leather and they are very nice too. But I wonder if there would be a way to prevent the leather from drying out or stretching or just kind of rotting away eventually and how long it would take for those kinds of things to happen. The upholstered one that I saw was a tele in black leather with a paisley design in the leather.There are a couple of guys that also have been making leather pickguards for teles and strats that have the kind of carving you seen done on saddles and some that really look like alligator skin (but are actually made of leather) that are pretty interesting....as well as some done in metal. The ones done in metal have kind of a celtic webwork made of metal and then they put them on over a black pickguard. There some interesting Balinese ones too made of metal....It's an amazing thing how creative people can get when they love something as much as we all love our guitars. Isn't it?


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Post subject: Re: Hand Carved Guitar Bodies
Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 7:07 pm
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Here is Fender's new sand-blasted Precision Bass
Image

and a link for leather covers for guitar (very expensive)
http://www.mosbyguitars.com/gcover.html

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.


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Post subject: Re: Hand Carved Guitar Bodies
Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 11:52 pm
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This is a little off the topic....but I have seen pics of the sand blasted Fenders. I have not seen one in person yet. I noticed the pic you posted of it was a P bass. You should see the nearly all rosewood half P/ half J bass I am making and giving to a friend of mine. It's going to have a solid sapele P bass body with ribboning and a solid Bolivian rosewood top, a solid Indian rosewood J bass neck with a matching Bolivian rosewood fretboard, Fender Custom Shop '62 Precision Pickups and all Fender American made gold hardware. I'd post a pic or two of it here for you to take a look at if I could figure out how to ad pics to my posts....wink.


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Post subject: Re: Hand Carved Guitar Bodies
Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2015 9:28 pm
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I use photobucket to post my photos. It's free and easy to use. :D

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.


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Post subject: Re: Hand Carved Guitar Bodies
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 5:01 am
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I left you an email here. Just let me know and I can send you some pics.


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Post subject: Re: Hand Carved Guitar Bodies
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 11:13 am
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Got it blufenderbender ! Thank you very much !

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.


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Post subject: Re: Hand Carved Guitar Bodies
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 4:34 pm
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Hope you liked the pics I sent you, Solid Body Love Songs. If you know how to post pics on here, maybe you could post the pics of the carved dragon strat and flamed zebrawood neck I put on it , for me? I couldn't figure out how to post them on here and some of the other guys wanted to see a couple of pics of that strat. Thanks. I found a pic of the other guitar body I have that is carved and some pics of some carved guitars that were done by a friend of mine . He carves them by hand himself and they are pretty incredible. I will send you another email with them in it.


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