Paul Rhoney

I finished my first guitar in December of 2007. It was very nearly unplayable thanks to the narrow nut width, baseball bat thick neck, enormous frets, and poor overall setup. But it did have two things going for it.

First was that it sounded good. After adjusting to the scrawny feel of the first position chords, I could play it without messing up too many notes, and I did so at my old band’s first (and last) reunion gig.

The second thing was that it looked cool.

I got a lot of interest in it, and a couple of people asking me seriously what it would cost for me to make them one.  To date, I still haven’t made any of these for any one else.

But I’m happy to say that I have finally started making another one.  This is the guitar that I hope to someday make the flagship model of the Paul Rhoney Guitar Co..  Most obviously inspired by the Supro Dual Tone/Martinique/Sahara/Coronado body style, but mixed with my other favorite guitars, the Fender Jazzmaster and the Gibson Les Paul.  I spent the last couple of years, after making the first one, refining the curves and “perfecting” my design.  I feel like I’ve really made it my own.

Work continues, and the plan is for it to have a metallic blue top and only clear coat on the back and neck.

09/18/10:

Today I handed this guitar off to a local guitar finisher who is going to be doing a finish on it for me. Here’s a few pictures I snapped before sending it on its way:

10/27/2010:

First off, I decided to rename this model of guitar from Oceanic to Oceana.  I just like the sound of that better.

So this guitar, which I’ve taken to referring to as a “prototype,” went off to be finished.  To put it lightly, I wasn’t happy with the finish.

At first I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do.  Should I look for someone else to finish my guitars?  Should I do my own finishes, and just not offer anything sprayed (limiting my finish options to hand-applied finishes)?  Should I just stop offering finishing altogether?

A few things came in to play that have formulated a new plan.  First of all, I read a positive review of the Earlex HV5000 turbine paint sprayer, by my friend Ben Fitton.  Ben makes some great guitars and bought the Earlex to replace his broken air compressor.  I had heard about the Earlex before, but wrote it off because of its low psi.  Ben said that it was working admirably spraying lacquer on his guitars, and that the noise was about equal to a vacuum cleaner (since that’s pretty much what it is!).  The noise factor is a big plus since I work out of my apartment.

The next thing is that I sent a message off to my friend Saul Koll about finishing.  I told him what had happened with this Oceana prototype and asked if he could perhaps give me any advice on how to finish guitars.  Even with the little bit of success I’ve had with finishing, I still don’t feel fully prepared to do it all myself.  So today I met up with Saul and showed him the prototype.  We agreed that the finish was not good, but words like “sexy” were thrown around in reference to the guitar itself.  Saul offered to help me get a good finish on the guitar.  He thought that walking me through all the steps would be the best way to explain how he finishes guitars.

11/19/2010: I decided that I want to change the name of this model from “Oceanic” to “Oceana.”  Just sorta has a nicer ring to it, don’t ya think?

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Tags: guitar, Jazzmaster, Les Paul, Supro

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 7:30 pm and is filed under Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.