The Redenbacker Guitar

My latest DIY (do-it-yourself) guitar project! Click on the images for larger pictures.

In terms of styling, the guitar is basically a cross between Brian May's homemade "Red Special" guitar, and a Rickenbacker...hence, the name "The Redenbacker." This is not a copy of any one guitar, but you can easily see the influences.

I the guitars that I make are not for sale. They are for my personal use. I posted these photos for those who might be interested in luthiery, and for anyone who might appreciate a unique guitar!

Pao Ferro (also called Bolivian Rosewood or Morado) strips are cut for the guitar core.
Strips glued together.
Grain of strips oriented in opposing directions for stability.


A poplar wood semi-hollow body is constructed around the Pao Ferro core. The tremolo system was machined by Esteban Anderson, a luthier from Argentina; the quality is great! It is a copy of Brian May's ingenious tremolo system.
Pickups are by Retrotron. The model is the "Austin." These are no longer made. Too bad, because they sound incredible! I tested these against several other pickup types before selecting these.
The body is glued together. Cavities are routed.

A neck from Warmoth. The fretboard is Brazilian rosewood, and the rest of the neck is made of Indian rosewood. I've built a neck from scratch before, but I like the shape of the "boatneck" Strat necks, so on this project I'm going to save myself the work. The frets are stainless steel. There is a roller nut by Fender. The headstock will be modified a bit to be less pointy.
Testing, testing 1... 2... 3.... Deciding on pickup placement and wiring scheme. After testing, the three pickup combination is scrapped in favor of the two pickup format.
The temporary center in the body on the left is about to be cut away to make room for the guitar core on the right.

The body has been cut, and the routing is being completed to make room for the aluminum control panel.
The aluminum will be cut to support the potentiometers and switches. This will be hidden under a plastic pick guard.
The front and back are glued onto the body. Got clamps?


A trial assembly. O.K., everything lines up well. What a relief! Now the guitar is taken apart, and the front and back edges are rounded with a router. The guitar is sanded, and then finished with Deft nitrocellulose sanding sealer.
A black nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Here you can see the Pao Ferro wood at the base of the pickup cavities. The neck joint isn't supported by much from the body, which is why I chose a stiff wood. The opposing grain orientation of the Pao Ferro core strips (see above) makes this very stable.
Back cavity. The tremolo system is accessed from the back of the guitar. A black, lacquered piece of poplar wood (not pictured) is recessed snugly into here to act as a cover for the cavity. It conforms perfectly to the guitar's shape.

Polishing the lacquer takes some time (and it's really tedious and boring).


Closeup of guitar body. Controls include volume, tone, a polarity switch for each pickup, a series/parallel switch, and a standard pickup selector switch.


In terms of tone, it has it's own vibe. I wanted to achieve a unique sound as opposed to sounding like other guitars that are already out there. The hard work has paid off! You can see the final headstock shape here.


There were specific features that I wanted to incorporate into the design of this guitar:

  • easy access all the way up to the highest frets
  • the guitar also had to be comfortable to play while sitting or standing
  • the ability to achieve some of the unique "out-of-phase" pickup sounds that are possible only with Brian May's pickup switching system

I intentionally chose not to put binding around the edges. I think that white binding looks great (as used, for example, on the Les Paul guitar), but the bound edges are somewhat sharp and tend to irritate my forearm when I'm playing. I like the feel of the rounded edge of the Stratocaster body.

The tremolo will take the low E string down over an octave, and it will return in tune. The Fender roller nut, a roller bridge, and the straight pull on the strings throughout their travel makes for very little friction. I don't use the whammy much, but maybe I'll do it more since this works so well. Incidently, I had thought that my headstock design shape, with all of the strings being pulled in a straight line, was original. However, after looking around at pictures of other guitars on the internet, I've found that there are one or two luthiers that have built similar headstocks. Oh well! I guess that everything really has been done before!

I'm very excited about the sound of this guitar (sorry, no sound files yet. I recently moved, and all my recording gear is in storage!). In building this, I had a "battle of the pickups" in order to choose the ones that I liked most. I tried a bunch of different brands, including a set of the expensive reissue Gibson mini humbuckers. Those sounded pretty good, but the cheapo Retrotron Austin pickups that I ended up choosing had a more unique character. I sold a lot of pickups on eBay after this was all over and done. I had originally planned to use three pickups, but as I played with positioning the pickups in different locations on the wood, the two pickup format gave me the sounds that I wanted. Also, it's nice to not have that middle pickup in the way for the heavy bashing pick technique (ala Pete Townsend).

Thanks for looking!

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