Top: Flamed Maple

Body & Neck: Mahogany (Toona Sinensis)

Controls: Volume & Pickup Toggle
Pickups: Bridge Humbucker with a DC Resistance of 11.9K. Neck P-90 with a DC Resistance of 6.4K.

Scale Length: 24.75"

Fretboard Radius: 14"

Neck Width at Nut: 1 5/8"

Neck Width at 12th Fret: 2"

Neck Profile: C-Shaped

Neck Thickness at 1st Fret: 7/8"

Neck Thickness at 12th Fret: 1"
Body Thickness: 1 5/8” at the edge

Fret Wire: Nickel/Silver 6150 “Jumbo”

Finish: Satin Poly

Weight: Approximately 7 pounds

The D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F. is our latest offering for 2014. It’s a set-neck classic with a hard-mounted humbucker at the bridge and a P90 at the neck. An arched flamed maple top, but without the cheesy plastic binding at the seam to cut into your arm and make your hand go numb. All wrapped up in a thin satin poly finish. It’s heavier than our Junior G-Man, it’s not nearly as bad as you might expect. A Volume control and pickup toggle round out its Spartan feature set.

Lemme tell you why this guitar exists. Again, I wanted to figure out a way to build a guitar I always wanted to own, but nobody ever seemed interested in building and I wanted to be able to sell it at a decent price. If you've got an interest in my long-winded explanation I'll be happy to share it with you.

A Name You Can Trust!

When I was talking about building these I kept being reminded by people that the way it’s done is with four knobs and binding and trap inlays or block inlays. I listened to all the rationalization about why it had to be done a certain way and I realized my guitar was going to be called the D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F. for exactly those reasons. Why build it, though?

Affordable Enough to Enjoy Owning

First off, there's the cost thing. During the decades since I was a teenager roaming the streets of Hollywood and rocking out with single-minded abandon, the marketing vultures of the industry have apparently noticed that us aging rockers make up a big chunk of the people who buy guitars. Presumably as we've aged we've accumulated too much disposable income.

A lot of the industry is centered around providing exact copies of the guitar made famous in 1950-whatever and it has to be exactly like that 60-year-old guitar because there was some kind of special sauce in those that modern technology is unable to replicate. To replicate that mojo requires the use of special secrets that force them to charge you $3000 or $5000 or $9000 and then you're going to need to make sure nobody ever touches that instrument once you get it home or it will lose its resale value.

I have acquaintances who own a room full of guitars that have barely ever been touched. That takes all the fun out of plugging in and playing an instrument. To me this stuff is supposed to be inexpensive enough so you can try out new things. You shouldn't be scared to take your new guitar out and play it. When you play your instrument you should be able to beat on it like it owes you money without worrying about the fiduciary consequences of nicking it up a little.

I’ve made the point on a number of occasions that I disapprove of the prevalent desire for highly-figured woods, which almost never contribute to the sound of an instrument in a positive way. When I was talking to suppliers about wood for the top I was originally thinking of an arched mahogany top. Then I thought about maple, but not figured maple. Finally my supplier told me that they stock a lot of flamed and quilted maple for these kinds of tops, but if I wanted something different than that they could obtain it at extra cost. Well, given that as a baseline I opted for the least expensive flamed maple. So it’s not insanely figured, but there you go. I’m finally building one that’s all pretty ‘n image-conscious.

Hardware You Can Trust

The hardware is fine, but it's not nearly as nice as the neck and body. The idea is to offer a solid deal on a guitar that sounds and plays really great right out of the box without the need to go broke in the process. It's got the kind of hardware most import guitars have. Playable, but not fancy.

I just want to make that clear so you aren't expecting Schallers or something. In this price range you're getting generic import hardware. It works fine. It's not like back in the 70's when you'd try to tune your Japanese wonder-axe and the tuning machine would bend if you turned it too fast. Just a big FYI for the concerned consumer. I'm doing what I can to make a good, inexpensive product, but I can't perform miracles. Upgrades are available if you desire them, but the instrument plays just fine with the stock hardware.

The Tale of the Stock Pickups

These are ceramic pickups. The Bridge pickup has a DC Resistance of 14.4K. The Neck pickup has a Resistance of 6.1K. Which some people are going to like a lot and some are going to want something hotter, particularly in the neck position. Still, the price is extremely low for an instrument like this and it's a good place to start if you've got mods on your mind. 'Cause no matter what pickups I put in this, they probably wouldn't be what you have in mind. For my own personal D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F. I’m using an DiMarzio Tone Zone in the bridge position and a DiMarzio Virtual P90 in the neck position. Lotta ways to go with something like this, though.

If you want me to install your own pickups I can do that. Or I can do other mods like a Bourns or CTS pot. Or a Shadow Kill Pot; those seem like they were created just for this guitar. Just drop me a line.

Hard-Mounted Pickups

Anyway, back to pickups. These guitars are light-bodied and made of warm-sounding mahogany. When an amp distorts the harmonics light up. The treble can really get out of control if a guitar is too bright. A nice warm tone distorts into something you can really sink your teeth into. In the late 70's Saint Edward of Nijmegen screwed a P.A.F. into an alder Strat body. In his early instrument he had a vintage trem, but in '79 when he started using locking trems he thought the alder body was too bright and came up with a black and yellow beast made of mahogany to combat the dreaded toppiness. Later he'd go to basswood (also a very warm wood sonically), but I digress. Mahogany sounds awesome; that's the takeaway.

Getting back to Saint Edward, there's something else he discovered that moved mankind forward. If you screw your pickups right into the wood instead of mounting them in some kind of rings-with-springs contraption it sounds better and makes it easier to control feedback when you play in front of a loud amp. You can see that at work right here. There are manufacturers who'll tell you that hard-mounting a pickup is a novelty that doesn't yield any audible results, but when you dangle a pickup by springs and stand in front of a really loud amplifier the pickup will begin to vibrate in ways that don't sound very appealing. Some touring musicians wedge foam in around the sides of the pickup to fight it, but why should you have to? Ever kicked an old Fender amp with a spring reverb? Hard mounting combats that tendency for the springs to do things that nobody wants to hear. If you never play louder than bedroom volumes you'll never know the difference, but for those of you who live for feedback it will completely change the character of the feedback you get.

Mahogany Guitars Rule

Speaking of cost, this guitar has a very nice neck and body. That's primarily what you're buying. This is excellent mahogany (Toona Sinensis or "Tuna Sinsemilla" in my own shop slang) with a maple top. You may have noticed the satin finish on this guitar. That brings us to another part of the puzzle.

One of my first instruments was an Aria made by Matsumoku. It had a satin finish and no matter how much I played it there were never any visible fingerprints on it. I've known guys who seemed to spend as much time polishing their instruments as playing them. Satin finishes rule. They never look dirty.

I also kind of think shiny guitars look silly, so there's that. There's something kind of Louis XIV-ish about shiny, ponce-y guitar. I see someone open up a case with a quilted AAAA top staring out at me and I can't help thinking they should be wearing a powdered wig, pointy shoes and a lace cravat.

Here's a big thing, though…those 20-coat lacquer paint jobs are thick and that thick paint dampens the resonance of the instrument. It's a big part of why cork-sniffers love the early nitrocellulose paint. It wasn't so much like wrapping your instrument in neoprene. And that's a valid way to go, but not the one I've chosen because I really like the way satin finishes look and feel.

Oh yeah, the feel-y thing. Shiny guitars grab your skin. Those gloss finishes have a friction coefficient like glass. You're chucka-chucka-ing away and your shiny guitar suddenly friction-rapes your forearm. Now you just fell out of time with the rest of the band and looked silly in the process. If only you had a guitar with about a quarter as much friction trying to grab you. You know, like this one.

The Bottom Line

This is the ultimate 24 3/4"-scale, set-neck, solid-body, rock-and-roll machine. In my opinion, of course. It's relatively light, comfortable, warm, loud, has a very full tone. It's designed from the ground up to rock. Besides all that, it looks absolutely awesome (in my opinion…again, your mileage may vary). I honestly don't see how you can go wrong. Of course, I like earning a living, so you probably shouldn't blindly trust me, but I'm shootin' you straight. As soon as I played the first one I knew. Plug it in and you'll know, too.