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Announcing the launch of B-Way Guitars


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Congrats Ben! The guitar looks great and I'm impressed you went with the tele pickups-looks like a great tone recipe right there!

The proto has a Tele neck PU and Strat bridge PU, but the full Tele PU configuration will also be offered.

I already have my inlays...

victim_inlays.jpg

LOL nice.

Congrats! Looks like a sweet guitar! Reminds me a little of a Klein or of a Ovation Breadwinner, except more practical.

It's definitely influenced by those, as well as Teuffel and Backlund, but with more traditional tonal ingredients, at least for the proto.

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Love the body shape,

love the headstock shape,

love the knobs and

love the jack adjacent to the strap button.

Love that it's not a 'Paul or Strat copy!

Take this or leave it... Medium to large MOP board inlays might be a nice, unifying feature, given the white body and pearloid pickguard pictured. I'm a frustrated guitar designer, myself.

Congrat's and much good luck in this new venture! :)

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Love the body shape,

love the headstock shape,

love the knobs and

love the jack adjacent to the strap button.

Love that it's not a 'Paul or Strat copy!

Take this or leave it... Medium to large MOP board inlays might be a nice, unifying feature, given the white body and pearloid pickguard pictured. I'm a frustrated guitar designer, myself.

Congrat's and much good luck in this new venture! :)

The pearloid guard is coming off the proto soon. It's getting a gold-backed clear acrylic guard with a "B" logo a la Gretsch. I just have to find time to spray it.

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Sort of a cool modern-retro feel to it...like some of the funkier 60s/70s designs but one that will actually play/sound good.

I actually like the headstock shape. Fender-ish adapted for your body style...without the usual ugliness many companies hit when trying to design around the trademark shape issue. I also like you "B" script style logo.

I think the oddest thing is the two-bolt neck? Do you think that might be something that will take a lot of selling to convice players of it's stability? Sure looks cool. It sort of looks like my Kubicki ExFactors, Vox terdrops and a Fender got thrown into that machine in "The Fly"

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I think the oddest thing is the two-bolt neck? Do you think that might be something that will take a lot of selling to convice players of it's stability?

Hard to say if it will be a factor in sales, but it's a good question. I would start off by mentioning that Tom Anderson, Ted Stevenson and Sweetwood (the builder I'm working with) have all been using 2-bolt neck joints for years. It's important to point out that these aren't wood screws, they're true machine bolts that thread into metal inserts in the neck. The pressure mating the neck and body is substantially more than what a 4-screw joint provides, with a lot less danger of stripping/cross-threading. And the neck and body meet in a channel rather than on a flat surface, which does away with side-to-side slop in the joint. So I'm pretty confident that the joint is overbuilt, especially relative to what's been done traditionally.

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And the neck and body meet in a channel rather than on a flat surface, which does away with side-to-side slop in the joint.

Any photos of that? I'd like to see what that looks like.

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And the neck and body meet in a channel rather than on a flat surface, which does away with side-to-side slop in the joint.

Any photos of that? I'd like to see what that looks like.

In the Sweetwood joint that we're using, it's a rounded channel. I don't have a good photo of it, but you can kinda get the idea in this CAD pic:

CAD.jpg

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I think the oddest thing is the two-bolt neck? Do you think that might be something that will take a lot of selling to convice players of it's stability?

Hard to say if it will be a factor in sales, but it's a good question. I would start off by mentioning that Tom Anderson, Ted Stevenson and Sweetwood (the builder I'm working with) have all been using 2-bolt neck joints for years. It's important to point out that these aren't wood screws, they're true machine bolts that thread into metal inserts in the neck. The pressure mating the neck and body is substantially more than what a 4-screw joint provides, with a lot less danger of stripping/cross-threading. And the neck and body meet in a channel rather than on a flat surface, which does away with side-to-side slop in the joint. So I'm pretty confident that the joint is overbuilt, especially relative to what's been done traditionally.

I didn't realize Tom Anderson had switched over to 2-bolt necks. Interesting info on that link. But yeah, I DID notice you are using machine bolts threaded into metal inserts. I have those on my Kubickis and also used them on a couple of my other bolt-ons.

Seems that the channel neck joint with a 2-bolt machine bolt config is fine. Looks like more wood-to-wood contact and no eventual wear/pull out like normal wood screws.

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And the neck and body meet in a channel rather than on a flat surface, which does away with side-to-side slop in the joint.

Any photos of that? I'd like to see what that looks like.

In the Sweetwood joint that we're using, it's a rounded channel. I don't have a good photo of it, but you can kinda get the idea in this CAD pic:

CAD.jpg

Rounded channel reminds me of Teuffel's Niwa... Have I got that right?

Very cool!

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I believe Parker does/did use a rounded channel for their bolt-neck Flys. It always seemed like a great idea to me and after Tom Anderson did it, I've tended to view 2-bolt neck joints as a positive feature.

-

Austin

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Rounded channel reminds me of Teuffel's Niwa... Have I got that right?

Very cool!

Yep, the Niwa has a rounded channel as well, but I don't know whether that was the inspiration for Glenn or whether came up with it on his own. The way he does it, there is some extra mass in the neck at the joint area. With the Niwa, it looks like the neck profile continues on into the joint.

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  • 2 weeks later...

this is just incredible Ben, to pursue a dream like this and to take that leap.

the sound clips are GREAT, and this guitar would fit right into the Nashville scene.

Going with this, it just blows me away man. I really hope you get more than a few of these guitar out there, serving the boutique Fender crowd with gig-worthy guitars.

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