New build sneak preview: the "Concept" Moderne

[Bill Hicklin]

I do think that had Gibson not canceled the Moderne, there would have been some changes for the sake of production. For instance, as nice as the control knobs look in this location, drilling that long, long wiring channel (and then feeding the wires through it) would probably have been thought more trouble than it was worth. It's likely that a control cavity close to the tailpiece like the Explorer's would have been substituted.

 

[Bill Hicklin]

Not having an original Korina lying around the house, and no drawings, I adapted the neck and heel contour from Tom Bartlett and John Catto's Les Paul drawings

 

[Bill Hicklin]

Centerfold shot- except it defeated the limited focusing ability of my little point-n-click camera.

(Yes, that's an overlooked smudge of compound beside the fretboard)

 

[Bill Hicklin]

Gloss black is a massive PITA, but it's soooooo satisfying when you conquer it.

(The specks are the dust that settled on it just since the shoot started. That's how unforgiving it is.)

 

[voices]

It came out awesome!

 

[Brians Evil Twin]

Looks killer, nice job.

 

[SiriusAbbott]

Awesome....simply awesome!!!

 

[emoney]

Great job, Bill and super, awesome thread! Thanks for sharing. Take note newbies...this is how it's done!

 

[Bill Hicklin]

One more-

From the back the shape comes out- "rotated" as explained above, it's rather slender and elegant

But that's a looong body....

 

[Bill Hicklin]

And by long, I mean it dwarfs a Strat, it's even a mite longer overall than my bass!

I'll never find a case for it...

 

[SiriusAbbott]

I'll never find a case for it...

actually,the largest Coffin case available,a bass model,will work just fine

 

[Fallen]

Awesome!

What is the Neck dive like? Thinking of making one.

 

[Bill Hicklin]

Awesome!

What is the Neck dive like? Thinking of making one.

Quite the opposite, if anything it's body heavy.

(it's not very practical played sitting; it wants to slide off your thigh. It works best to put it on your left leg with the 'fork' against your right, but that tends to shove the neck way out, Nigel Tufnel-style. The Erlewine-Gruhn guitar has a slight cutout on the lower back edge, apparently for this reason.)

 

[Fallen]

Quite the opposite, if anything it's body heavy.

(it's not very practical played sitting; it wants to slide off your thigh. It works best to put it on your left leg with the 'fork' against your right, but that tends to shove the neck way out, Nigel Tufnel-style. The Erlewine-Gruhn guitar has a slight cutout on the lower back edge, apparently for this reason.)

Nice!

I hate beautiful guitars that would rather look at the floor than the crowd.

 

[reedy]

Bill that turned out beautifully! Awesome guitar and a great thread, thanks for sharing. I'm curious, how is the tuning stability with that headstock/tuner setup?

 

[Bill Hicklin]

Bill that turned out beautifully! Awesome guitar and a great thread, thanks for sharing. I'm curious, how is the tuning stability with that headstock/tuner setup?

It appears to be fine, with the caveat that the strings are new. Certainly better than either string trees or mega-fouling!

There's no reason a priori to think that this arrangement would cause tuning problems (look closely, the nut slots are slightly angled to match); the only drawback is that it's easy to forget the tuners are "backwards" and start cranking the wrong one.

 

[Bill Hicklin]

Tone report

Hey, anyone can make one look good, but what does it sound like?

I didn't want to base this on my own crappy playing, so I had a friend of my son's come over who's a really talented college semipro.

I'm very, very pleased.

Tone ranged wonderfully from jazz cleans to chimey and bell-like right up to bluesy dirt, even got some Iommi-ish metal sounds when detuned- not bad considering the amp was a tweed Princeton clone. Definite contrasts between a rich, mellow neck tone (no mud) and a biting bridge. Not exactly a screamer, but then PAF repros only go so far in that direction and it's not what I was looking for - but it does wail. The fact that the body is "cheap" poplar seemed to matter not a whit; sounded very, very similar to a buddy's mahogany Explorer.

Very gratifying was Joe's opinion that the balance was perfect, the neck was very playable and I got the action spot-on*. So I guess I done good.

__________________

*After I lowered the bridge low-E pole piece, which was causing a rattle

 

[The Devil's Tool]

I joined this forum just so I could comment on this thread - kudos Bill, killer guitar and awesome build detail. I freaking love the thought you put into the neck/body angle.

Hope this guitar is still rockin' out for you.