Looking for recommendations for a luthier to chamber a guitar

[jginsj]

I won’t go into the long story about how this guitar, custom made for me, came about, but I always wanted a Junior made to my specs (TLE neck carve, sustain block bridge, Bill Lawrence pickup).  Well, here it is. I’ve had it for a few years. The luthier(??!) who made it did several thing things wrong with it, but for the most part I’ve been able to get it to work well, and it does play very nicely.  It’s pretty much exactly what I wanted if I overlook some of the silly flaws. What I truly can’t stand though, is that the builder managed to find the heaviest piece of mahogany on the face of the planet. Either that or he filled it with lead. It weighs in just at 10 pounds, which probably isn’t the heaviest guitar ever made, but the problem is that it is extremely unbalanced. It’s very annoying to play sitting down, the neck is just dying to pop up and hit me in the face. If I let go of the neck it would literally do just that, and probably with some force at that. It is perfectly balanced standing up, but it’s heavy and I pretty much never play standing up anymore and I don’t gig.
 

Anyone know of a luthier that could chamber this thing without ruining the finish, if that’s even possible?

 

 

[jginsj]

[Dave Scepter]

I realize this is not the answer to your question however, instead of spending a fortune and potentially ruining your guitar forever... how about an alternative, such as this?.. a rubber grip strip for when you're playing sitting down... I glued one onto 1 of my Star bodies, and it's like night and day.

Edited Saturday at 03:00 PM by Dave Scepter

[jginsj]

14 hours ago, Dave Scepter said:

I realized this is not the answer to your question however, instead of spending a fortune and potentially ruining your guitar forever... how about an alternative, such as this?.. a rubber grip strip for when you're playing sitting down... I glued one onto 1 of my Star bodies, and it's like night and day.

 

 

 

That’s a pretty good idea, it’s worth a try at least. Thanks!

[alantig]

There's also this, recommended by Tim Pierce (at least at one time).  Would not require any actual change to the guitar.  But it's pricey.

https://guitarscientist.com/get-performaxe/

[hamerhead]

1" spade bit from the side. Cover resulting holes with duct tape (checkerboard, if you're feeling fancy).

[Dave Scepter]

6 hours ago, jginsj said:

That’s a pretty good idea, it’s worth a try at least. Thanks!

Yeah, if you don't want to spend the money on a guitar specific strip "$45+

I bought, a peace of V Groove rubber mat "exact same thing" cut to size, rounded both ends using a quarter as a template and installed it with 3M Spray adhesive "on both surfaces"... $12-$15

https://ebay.io/m/9iBX8W

Edited Saturday at 07:17 PM by Dave Scepter

[jginsj]

5 hours ago, hamerhead said:

1" spade bit from the side. Cover resulting holes with duct tape (checkerboard, if you're feeling fancy).

Hahahaha, um, maybe not. I could always leave it by my bedside as a self defense weapon. With the weight of the body, I could probably knock an intruder to Cuba. 

[Hbom]

Better than a drill.     pic came with a fine example of an American made guitar, so it must be good.

[django49]

What I would be inclined to do (NOT myself!) is find someone that could use a router to remove a deep layer of wood from the back of the guitar (mainly behind the bridge), leaving a "ledge" around the edges, then cutting a thin piece of wood to fit the cutout. It might be a bit trial and error to get to the amount of wood to remove and get the right balance and not affect the tone too severely.

The back might end up something like this (OR you could try to get a matching wood). That would preserve the rounded edges of the guitar and avoid the need to then have to match the finish. (This example has the back extending to the edges, part of the original build, rather than inset after the fact). 

 

[cynic]

More or less the same idea as @django49 above...

Make it a smoker!

[bry4321]

Great question! There are a bunch of videos on youtube as you may already know

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 13 hours ago by bry4321

[hamerhead]

Holy f**k - somebody actually did it!

[Dave Scepter]

9 minutes ago, hamerhead said:

Holy f**k - somebody actually did it!

I can't get over the fact that he actually used a prime piece of Black Limba... He could have proved his point using a Maple cutting board or something 🙄