Henrique Schneiter's latest guitar

[Henrique Schneiter]

Something conventional for now. My first time using the pickups screwed directly to the body. Also experimenting with the "minimally carved", top-mounted floyd rose.

Woods:
Neck and fingerboard: pau-marfim
Neck binding: rosewood
Body: cedrinho
Stripes: canela-preta (center) and marupá

Pickups:
EMG single coil and Golden Age HB

Electronics:
Three-way switch
Series-parallel switch for the bridge pickup
"Tone-choke" switch

Comments welcome.

[Henrique Schneiter]

More pictures

[Henrique Schneiter]

A couple more

[Mark Swanson]

That is really beautiful! I could play that one all night long. I like everything about it, the woods are interesting.
Can you tell us more about the method you used to carve that body? And what type of neck joint did you use? Great job!

[Jim McConkey]

Great job! Clean, simple, and the different woods compliment each other nicely. The only thing that bothers me is the truss rod cover. The stark black just looks out of place to me and throws the whole instrument out of visual balance. I think it would look much better if it was the same color as the body, but that is only my personal opinion.

[Mark Swanson]

I would need a volume control though. And can you explain the "tone choke" switch?

[Claude Misukiewicz]

I would need a volume control though. And can you explain the "tone choke" switch?

I think I see the shafts of two pots right where you'd expect them to be? Or are those something else? What's your theory on knobs?

That said, this is a beautiful guitar and I love the choice of woods. Gorgeous neck, too.

[Henrique Schneiter]

Thanks a lot guys. I'm happy with it, though I'm still adapting to the 0.11 string set on it.

Mark, the carving was done with hand rasps, scrapers and a lot of sanding. I draw concentric lines with a compass, 2 cm away from the edge on the upper bout and 3 cm on the lower (merging them on the waist), draw the depth on the sides an work with the rasps. Nothing really fancy here. The pics below show the drawings and preliminary carving.

[Henrique Schneiter]

About the neck joint, it's a "pocket" type, just a tad deeper and longer than a bolt-on would, and carved on the back. Again nothing so fancy. Every gluing on this guitar was made with aliphatic, except on the neck joint, wich I used epoxi. I was concerned about the different wood contraction/expansion rates there. Anyway, epoxi probably isn't a solution if this became a problem, but I can sleep better.

The tone-choke is a switch that adds a 0.047 capacitor to the circuit and acts ultimately as a tone pot all "open". I've realized that when I use the tone pot, it's either all open or all closed, so the switch suits me better. I found that good for jazzy solos. Also, I choose to avoid pots on most of my guitars, as they steal signal from the pickups (not much, but noticeably for me), and I almost always use them on 10. Sometimes, when I want full control over the tone (1 pickup guitar, for example), I use a push-pull pot for the tone, with the push-pull working as a bypass to the tone control. About volume, I'm used to control it with a pedal.

I've seen some people do the tone-choke thing with a rotary switch and different caps, with interesting results (varitone-like switches). May try it someday.

Jim, suggestion annotated.
Claude, I think that answers the question.
Thanks again!

[Robert Smallwood]

Simple and beautiful...I want to hold it...any sound bytes anywhere?

[Henrique Schneiter]

Sorry Robert, but not. I intend to record a video sometime. If this discussion happen to be still going I will publish a link. Thanks anyway.

[Chad McCormack]

Nice work, Henrique. I like it a lot, especially the heel transition and the overall cleanliness of the work. Can you tell us about your finish? Looks awesome in the photos. Again, nice job!

[Henrique Schneiter]

Thanks Chad. The finish is nitro lacquer (many coats!) over two washcoats of lacquer sanding sealer. No pore filler, so I had to spray and sand back a few times to fill in the cedrinho (quite similar to mahogany).