Some guitars I have made over the years

[Orpheo]

I used to be quite active on this forum, but my presence here has faded a bit. I'm still the owner over 12 warmoth LP's, down from almost 40, haha, but I have not sit still. I have made a whole slew of my own guitars. I thought it might be cool for you all to see what happens when you spend way too much on machines, a workshop, wood, parts, and squander away a decade to create guitars


2020. My PRS 594 style guitar. Two Seymour Duncan pickups, hipshot hardware, and a wiring that pulls out the most out of these. This axe has a flamed korina back, quilt maple top (no veneer), 17 piece neck, ebony board. The dude who ordered it, paid his downpayment but couldn't finish the rest, so the guitar reverted back to me.

2020. Flamed ash back, figured walnut top, sycamore pickguard, chambered, thinline F-Hole, wide range buckers, ebony board with maple binding, and a 5 piece neck. Exactly what I always wanted to own. But... I don't like tele shapes THAT much, so I sold it.


2020. Single piece flamed maple body, 5 piece flamed maple/walnut neck, ebony board, Floyd Rose, custom Seymour Duncan pickups. This axe screams and howls. I just didn't care for it after a while, so I sold it. Who knew: pink is not my color.


2020. Carved tops and backs of matching woods, contrasting center cores, matching necks, and a LOT of Star Trek details. No backplates, by the way. Bareknuckle pickps.


2015. Single piece flamed maple top on single piece Honduras mahogany back. 9 piece cocobolo/ebony neck. The pickups are the 2012 Joe Bonamassa pickups and this is my favorite guitar by far. No inlay, I hate that, but tone, the neck, the aging... This is mine.


2018, rebooted in 2021. Korina body, bubinga neck, ebony board. This guitar has a Hipshot locking trem, custom Seymour Duncan pickups. This guitar is a shredder with a vintage heart.


2016. Purpleheart top, figured walnut back, Honduras mahogany core, wenge/ebony neck, ebony fretboard, custom pickups by Tonefordays. This guitar weighs almost 6 kilo's and sounds as huge as its weight.


2016, retopped in 2020. Quilt maple body and top, flamed maple neck, bubinga neck. This guitar sounded and played amazing. I just didn't like strats, so I sold it.


Flamed maple top, sapele back, purpleheart neck, ebony board, custom Seymour Duncan pickups, Hipshot trem and tuners. This guitar was one of my favorites, together with its Tune-o-Matic sunburst brother. I just had to sell them. Sometimes money trumps guitars.


2020. I always wanted a Jem, but no Jem existed the way I wanted it. Ash body, flamed maple neck, ebony board with maple binding, pickups I actually like (Seymour Duncan), silver purpleburst.

Just a few of my builds over the years.

 

[Orpheo]

OK, a few more.



2 biches and one LP. The left bich (2019) has a koa top and back, sandwiched on black korina, with a 17 piece neck and custom pickups by Axesrus. I got the koa myself from the USA, when I was in Los Angeles for the Rod Stewart show in Hollywood with Jeff Beck. Yup, I actually flew to the USA to see those two. Now, in hindsight, that proved to be an even better choice than I had ever thought at the time. The red bich (2018) was made with woods from the USA harvested in the 50ies. I could tell by the stamps on the timber from a lumber yard that went belly up in the late 50ies early 60ies. The LP (2020) features an HSS setup, trem, 5 piece flamed maple/walnut neck, ash body, maple top, 25.5'' scale, 22 frets. Hoping to make it sound like a strat, and I succeeded! Helas. So, the hotrail style pickups went in and I never looked back. Sold it, in order to go to Mexico.


2021: When your friend asks you to make him an LP but adjusted for his fairly tiny frame, you can't say no. Aluminium bridge, open gear tuners, thinner body, thin neck... This axe weight 3.5 kilo's. He gave it back to me in 2022 and I installed a set of Lundgren Heaven 57's, and those pickups are so, so good. That neck pickup is one of my alltime favorites. So clear, clean, and fluid. Loved it.



2018-2020. My quartet of Exotics. Flamed walnut on quilt maple, quilt maple on korina, quilt mahogany on flamed ash, flamed maple on black korina. All with Hipshot trems and tuners, and since recently Bareknuckle pickups (Holydiver, Rebel Yell, Silo, Crawler), and 17 piece necks.


2017. Made this for a friend of mine. He wanted a 59 inspired LP, in nitrocellulose, but with a padouk neck so his hands wouldn't stick. Lightweight aluminium hardware by Hipshot with steel saddles, Seymour Duncan Slash pickpus. This axe is still one of my favorites.


Paisley style tele (2018) and strat (2017, refinished 2022). I didn't use wallpaper but used a template to spray the finish. The tele has a swamp ash body with a maple top, one peice flamed maple neck, olivewood fretboard, and an ordinary set of JB/Jazz pickups. The strat has a bubinga/wenge neck, swamp ash body with a sycamore top, and AxesRus pickups.

 

[mayfly]

Wow Orpheo, you've been busy! They are all great. All all these set-neck guitars, or are some of them bolt on?

And - are you making money?

 

[Orpheo]

Wow Orpheo, you've been busy! They are all great. All all these set-neck guitars, or are some of them bolt on?

And - are you making money?

LP's are set necks and a very few are bolt in's, because of tones I tried to reach.

Money? What is money. What is this, money, you talk about?

 

[bagman67]

Didn't you also get married, Orpheo? Good lord, you've been living a whole LIFE away from this bunch. Beautiful work on all those axes. I find the PRS-style guitar with the slight offset extremely attractive. Good to see you back here if only for a little while.

 

[Orpheo]

Ah, yeah, I also got married, but I opted to not mention that I wanted to focus a bit on guitars!

NO kids, so far. thank god

 

[aarontunes]

Daaaaaaaaang....

 

[Spud]

The collection of builds is awesome! In the. back of my mind I am wondering if this could be a cautionary tale.

 

[Rick]

Orpheo .... you are awesome!

Bagman ... indeed ... What is this money thing you gabble about! LOL!

 

[alexreinhold]

In Germany we say: "honor to those who deserve honor" ("Ehre wem Ehre gebührt")

Ehre to you Orpheo!

 

[ragamuffin]

Wow, lot's of beautiful builds there!

I really like the diamond-ish-Transformerhead? shaped switch plate on the 2018-2020 group

 

[Orpheo]

Wow, lot's of beautiful builds there!

I really like the diamond-ish-Transformerhead? shaped switch plate on the 2018-2020 group

I started to use that plate once I saw a mid 50ies Gibson sport something similar. It just makes my life a lot easier. I don't have to worry about paint chipping when I install the 3 or 5 way blade, the slot can be a little bit more wavy, etc. All because the top is convex at that spot instead of flat, otherwise no plate would be a breeze.

 

[Orpheo]

The collection of builds is awesome! In the. back of my mind I am wondering if this could be a cautionary tale.

It is It took me almost 20 years to discover what works. My LP recipe is kinda nailed down at this point and I'm quite happy with my design.

 

[vetteman]

I'm not normally a Silverburst guy, but that guitar is stunning! True craftsmanship.

 

[Waraxe]

I believe I remember your big sell off from the SD forum. You sold a bunch of warmoths then, right?

Dude, I love your inlays? Did you make them your self? If so, hats off to you sir.

My faves are.

The inlays on the pink les paul, and the star trek ones. Especially the star trek ones. Those are cool, and appeal to my inner nerd.

I love the tiger stripe shredder and the biches. I am a sucker for some biches. Lol.

If I remember correctly, you are doing scratch builds?

 

[Orpheo]

I believe I remember your big sell off from the SD forum. You sold a bunch of warmoths then, right?

Dude, I love your inlays? Did you make them your self? If so, hats off to you sir.

My faves are.

The inlays on the pink les paul, and the star trek ones. Especially the star trek ones. Those are cool, and appeal to my inner nerd.

I love the tiger stripe shredder and the biches. I am a sucker for some biches. Lol.

If I remember correctly, you are doing scratch builds?

I make my inlays myself, indeed. I do use a CNC because to handle a 0.3mm routing bit by hand is kinda impossible haha.

I haven't sold any warmoth part since 2018 to be honest, and only via this forum. I'm thinking about selling all my warmoth LP's. I'll give them pickups, strings, and either fix them up, or sell them (aged/worn) as is. I need space. I feel like I need to move on from my past in order to focus on the future. Moving to Mexico is still an option in my book and gosh, if I go, I only can take +- 20 guitars. Not 50.

I do almost all the work myself, and what I don't do, I can do if I have to. I outsource, for example, the radiussing of the fretboard and the fretslots, because it's more cost efficient. Or the glueing of the top.I can do it myself, but my lumber yard can do it faster, and therefor cheaper. He has a 2000 euro jointer, mine is 400. That difference is approximately 200 kilos of iron, a helix cutter head instead of a blade, so the joint is cleaner, faster. He has a clamping jig for table tops, I have regular hand clamps. It's just not economical for me to have those kinds of machines.

So why bother?

But once that basic woodwork is done, (i.e.: fretboard milled, body glued up, and sometimes even the neck blank by the lumber yard, see reasons above). I do the rest. Trussrod, neck shape, headstock angle, neck angle, body carve, pickup cavities, inlay. etc etc.

I have a stack of fretboards, necks and bodies, ready to go, but my wife thinks I have enough guitars so she's asking me if I can't perhaps have fewer guitars (she lives in Mexico, is going to live in my house in the Netherlands, but there's barely enough space for me + guitars, let alone me+wife+guitars!), so I can't build those axes, unfortunately. I might be able to dump 10 with a friend, and have space again for the newer ones I wanna make, but who knows. I doubt I'll ever be able to make a living out of this, so I'll just build for my own fun and enjoyment and sell a guitar here and there.

 

[Rick]

You gotta make the wife happy.

 

[Orpheo]

It's not as if she put a knife to my throat and said "SELL SELL SELL!!!". Rather, 'Hey, realize, there's not enough space for the two of us plus every thing that we both own. We need to make compromises'.

Sounds fair?

 

[Spud]

It's not as if she put a knife to my throat and said "SELL SELL SELL!!!". Rather, 'Hey, realize, there's not enough space for the two of us plus every thing that we both own. We need to make compromises'.

Sounds fair?

That certainly does sound fair. Your training/transformation from single, to fully molded married guy has begun. Within a reasonable span of time, you will be down to a sensible 5-8 guitars before you know it!

 

[Orpheo]

OH but I only play a handful of guitars!

2 LP's (59 style, and a semihollow with 3 pickups and trem), a humbucker telecaster (ash body, maple neck, JB/Jazz set), a strat (double cream pickups, black, roasted ash body, roasted maple neck, floyd rose), and the 2 biches.
I don't play anything else.

I am thinking about building a few guitars as replacement but w h y. Only because I don't like the (lack of) inlay? Bit childish of myself, me thinks.