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My first Guitarchat build thread! Oh no, say the folks who have followed some of my tortuous threads over on Basschat over the years! Yup. Another Andyjr1515 build thread...and it's a guitar...and you saw it here first My building has slowed down quite a bit - partly the pesky arthritis in my hands and partly the usual life's distractions - but there are one or two projects that have been on my list for years. And this is one of them. It is a variation on the theme of the iconic Gibson Firebird. 'Essence of' is probably a closer description as it aims to tackle some of the compromises of the original and is being built for a specific player and the specific way he plays. It's for my son-in-law who plays the excellent Epiphone Firebird. And can I make it better than an Epiphone Firebird? Of course not...but I can make it different. - lighter - easier to fret in the specific fretboard zones he plays - better on the strap and over the knee - less (hopefully no) neckdive - less flat-bodied And it's a chance to use this type of ebony again for those of you who saw the build thread a year or so back where I used it last: So off we go!

No it's not! I had forgotten that I did a couple of builds a few years back before Norton decided to play its tricks on me. Anyway, this is the first build thread since then!

Yea sure, let me know what you think if you try it out!

I agree with that. One of - no, I have to say THE best sounding guitar I ever had was an Epiphone LP junior - and that was, indeed, plywood. On the other hand, neck timbers - especially where they have vastly different stiffness characteristics, do in my view make a difference. But the difference in sound with different body timbers of a solid body electric, I am pretty certain, is inaudible to the average human ear. Oh - and why do I specify 'solid body'? Simply because, against all of my perceived logic, I pin my belief to the mast that you simply cannot get a Gibson 335 to sound like a Gibson Les Paul, and you cannot get a Gibson Les Paul to sound like a Gibson 335. It's subtle, but it's different. Same pickups, same scale length, same neck construction...

Folks over on Basschat have often asked why I don't post on Guitarchat, even when my builds are 6-string guitar builds. Well, up until now, Guitarchat has always been blocked by Norton on my system, with warnings of dire consequences, social unrest, pestilence and a return of Dynasty to our television screens if I were to commit such a dastardly act as to ignore their warnings. And, having had problems for years with ID fraud (it's what happens when you get your briefcase stolen from under your feet in Belgium) my banks are quite touchy about me not taking action and disregarding 'reasonable warnings of unsafe websites'. Anyway - looks like the mods have done some mods (that said, I think - and have always thought - this was a Norton quirk, not a Guitarchat quirk) because, for the first time I am able to log on without the warnings and for which I am very grateful. I am going to celebrate by boring you all silly with a guitar build thread that I'm currently on with. Don't say you haven't been warned! Andy