Double neck... Life time achievement!!

[Chris Richards]

Hi all

I've always found the advice given on this forum so helpful whenever I've asked a question. I've never posted any of my guitars on here so this is a first. I have to say that I'm very proud of this one not necessarily because there's anything too difficult in the build but because I've finally got to build a guitar for someone famous. I was asked last Christmas to build a 12-string bass double neck and have it finished by March, my initial answer was "no way, not in that timescale" But the customer said that he had some parts already which included the necks, at least this made the build feasible. As things progressed I chatted to the customer and I was amazed to find out that the guitar was going to be used on a world tour with Steve Hackett (original guitarist with Genesis), the Genesis revisited tour.... Well you can imagine how excited (and nervous) I got after hearing this.

I've built guitars as a hobby all my life but developed it into more of an extended hobby for about the last ten years, but to get a job like this just blew me away, just thinking of the guitar being used all over the world is so exciting.

The unusual feature is that the guitar can be bolted together as a twin neck or single guitars, the customer wanted an approximate copy of the original bolt together Shergold guitar as used by Mike Rutherford of Genesis in the 1980s. I wanted to make the whole thing a bit neater with less knobs and switches so I decided to incorporate electrical connections into the body joint so I could patch the 12-string pickups through to controls located in a more conventional position. Also I wanted to make the body joint neater than the original so I changed things around and placed the joining screws in the back. Making things a little more difficult is that it's left handed but strung right handed, every time I worked on it I was convinced that I was going to make a cut the wrong way around! Anyhow everything went well, getting the body joints working right took a lot of fiddling but like I say all good in the end.

My gorgeous wife (modelling the guitar in one of the pictures) is such an inspiration and so understanding when my 20 by 10 shed gets full my work migrates into the house and there's guitar bits all over the place, she also comes up with some great ideas and reminded me constantly "Don't forget it's left handed". Anyhow I hope you like it, I have lots of build pictures and can post them if you like.

[Gordon Bellerose]

That's a pretty neat build Chris. I'm speaking about the guitar! LOL. OK. I'll admit I was looking at your lovely wife too.
How did you manage the electronics? I see the double controls on the bass. Is there a harness that unplugs and then gets plugged in again when you use it as a double?

[Mark Swanson]

Pretty sweet! I hope it gets to play "The Lamb lies down on Broadway"!

[Chris Richards]

Here's a picture of the body joint. I really didn't want to use any sort of plug as I couldn't see it being very practical, the body halves are quite heavy and I could see a plug of some kind getting damaged during assembly, so I used the strips of metal that make up the joint to double up as contacts, they're cut into three with wires attached, front and back p/u (hot) and ground so bolting the body together connects the pickups to the controls in the lower half of the body. Also I wanted to keep it simple and as I couldn't see the bass and 12 string being played through the same amp I've put in separate jack sockets and any sort of switching can be done with foot switches, the three controls are straight forward, pan tone and volume.

Yeah... My wife is the best, I've spent every possible day since Christmas in my shed trying to get this guitar finished in time and what I get from her is cups of tea, coffee and tons of encouragement...never a complaint.

[Gordon Bellerose]

That's a great idea for connections. Any problems with that setup?

Yeah, my wife is really supportive of my efforts also. It is really nice.

[Jason Rodgers]

Woa, that transformer is more than meets the eye!

So, it's a lefty?

Very clever solution with the contact plates.

[Chris Richards]

The joints are made using two 20mm * 5mm, 200mm long stainless steel plates, one on each body half, one of the plates has threaded holes. Initially I hadn't thought of using these plates to do the electrical connections, once I decided this I cut the plates in three (fitted them first then removed and cut them)... The only slight problem is that as three plates I guess I was losing a bit of accuracy. It took a fair amount of fettling to get the joints really nice but I kind of expected this anyway.

The guitar is left handed but strung right handed!.... I was glad of the right handed stringing, at least I could flip it over to set it up and play it.

[Steve Senseney]

Quite an accomplishment.

I am impressed!

Very creative.

[Dave Locher]

I have never seen anything like that. Awesome. Incredibly creative. Thank you for posting it!

[Chris Richards]

Thanks for the comments guys.... Well the bassist came to pick it up today so its gone, he was really pleased with it couldn't stop playing it just a few minor mods with the strap buttons to get a better balance... Which was quit a relief. The band start rehearsing tomorrow, they have one gig in London before they start the US leg of the tour early April, Fort Lauderdale is the first port of call I think..... Just keeping everything crossed that the guitar behaves itself!