Oceana 3
The Lowdown
Top: Plain hard rock Maple
Back: Bookmatched Sapele
Neck: One-piece Sapele
Fretboard: Ebony
Bindings: White vulcanized fiberboard
Headstock veneer: Black vulcanized fiberboard
Nut: Bone 1.654″ width
Frets: LMI FW74 stainless steel
Finish: Nitrocellulose lacquer clear coat with Regal Red .004″ glitter top
Headstock logo: Hand-inked in gold metallic
Tuners: Gotoh vintage Kluson-style
Pickups: Roadhouse Pickups P-80 neck and bridge
Bridge: Modified Gotoh Nashville TOM (use 9/64″ allen key)
Tailpiece: USA Bigsby B5
Pickup selector switch: CRL blade-style
Switch mounting plate: Stainless steel/black vulcanized fiberboard laminate
Volume/Tome pots: CTS 500K solid shaft
Output jack: Switchcraft endpin with custom machined nut
Knobs: Black metal bell style
Strap buttons: Oversized with black felt washers
Truss rod cover: Black vulcanized fiberboard
Truss rod: Single-acting vintage style made by me
Fretboard radius: Compound radius roughly 8.364 at the nut, 12″ at the bridge
The Good
This guitar represents my personal design aesthetic better than any other instrument I’ve made to date. I like the contrast between the red sparkle top and the natural wood back, separated by the binding. I call it the best of both worlds. I like the white vulcanized fiberboard for the bindings. It’s something different, not plastic but has that bright color. The pickups were made just for me by Ken at Roadhouse Pickups. They’re slug-magnet single coils made just like a Fender pickup but sized like a P-90. I modified the bridge to accept 8-32 thread stainless steel socket cap screws, and installed steel threaded inserts in the body. I thought that might be an elegant replacement to the thumbwheel bridge posts you usually get. While those elements are clearly my own, there are other aspects that are less obvious. There is no control cavity cover on the back, cause who would want to cover up that nice wood grain? The headstock and neck angles are shallow, because I like the harmonic overtones you get that way.
The Bad
There’s three things about this guitar that you wouldn’t normally find on one of my Oceana model guitars. The first is that the body is thinner than usual. I typically shoot for 1.75″ body thickness, but this one ended up around 1.625″. Because the body is thinner than usual I had to mount the pickup selector switch on a plate instead of directly in the wood like I had originally planned. Second is that the neck heel is carved much smaller than usual, which came about as something I just wanted to try, but have decided that I prefer the look of the fuller neck heel. Third is that the nut width is narrower than the usual 1.6875″ that I typically end up with.
The Ugly
Unfortunately, there’s a few flaws in this guitar, most of which have to do with the finish. I decided to experiment with using Z-Poxy as a sealer coat underneath the finish, and while most people don’t seem to have adhesion problems using Z-Poxy, I definitely did. The nitro lacquer finish has chipped in a few places on this guitar, and while I was able to repair some of those chips, others are still visible. You can see a few small places around the tuners where the lacquer is peeling up slightly. I won’t be using Z-Poxy as a sealer anymore. There’s also a joint in the binding on the bass side cutaway where I did it backwards, so you can see it from the top, instead of it being hidden on the bottom.
