The Luthier Community

John Watkins, of CNC Guitar Parts, has developed a "chambered solid body" (excellent oxymoron!) with a heavy nod toward a Les Paul shape. These are the things that keep CNC guys excited about firing up the machines, I'd guess. Once he showed it on the OLF, a number of people asked if he would offer it as a kit, and he decided to do it. The version offered is a bit less involved than the original (which had a faux rope binding that was actually made as a box joint between body and top plate.)

Sort of along the lines of Eben's thread to build a guitar from parts, here's another way to get the wood parts: The Weaver

The original thread on the OLF: John Watkins' Acoustic Les Paul

and a couple of sound clips:
http://languagepool.net/recordings/My%20Song%2010.m4a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.cncguitarparts.com/acoustic%202.m4a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(If you don't have software that can play .m4a files, you might want to download VLC from VideoLAN (which also will play many video formats)

Dennis

Thta' very cool indeed, great work!

E

That makes for one sweet guitar kit, and, at a sweet price.

Thanks, guys. I'm glad you like it. I'll keep an eye on this thread in case there are any questions.

Hey, right on John -

Thanks for sharing your stuff and really great to have you here!

E

Great to see you here John, welcome to TLC

I really like 'The Weaver' concept and just know with the quality of work I have seen come from your CNC Guitar parts workshop in the past it's sure to be a winner. As already mentioned, at a great price point too. Any folks here not familiar with John's work should check out his website @ http://www.cncguitarparts.com. John has some really cool stuff so take a look in the tool section, the fret press caul and inserts are by far the best you will find bar none.

Having just stumbled across this post the weaver reminds me outwardly at least of a rare and short lived Gibson electro acoustic from the mid to late 80's I think. I dunno what its called but I remember it to be nylon string with an undersaddle pickup of some sort. A friend of mine and professional guitarist Jimmy Smith bought it for a steal a few years back from a dealer who thought someone had just stuck a gibson logo on it. It looks kinda wrong but sounds very much like any other nylon strung guitar Iv'e heard played through a Piezo, Jimmy did some resaerch on it and turns out it is a real Gibson. It didn't take off as a real instrument and was subsequently dropped from the range..... maybe Gibson were a little ahead of their time with this guitar, maybe they stole the Idea from elsewhere, I honestly dont know, but I do think peoples Ideas on what a proper guitar should be may have changed enough in the past 20years for this type of instrument to be accepted for what it is and not what it isn't....... maybe another one to put on my to do list!