How much does an ergonomic electric guitar cost?

“How much does an ergonomic electric guitar cost?” Well lately, that has been one of my FAQs. As my ergo guitars (or any other solid body) are 100% custom built and the client can have virtually any practical combination of hardware and woods, it’s a really difficult question to give a definitive answer to.

As a guide, an ergonomic 6-string built to a similar spec as the one here would cost 1400 GBP.  That’s with Kent Armstrong pick-ups and Gotoh hardware. Please note that this price would not include a case or shipping.

Less exotic wood, two pick-ups instead of three etc.  would reduce the price and equally more expensive pick-ups such as  DiMarzio would increase it.

To some, 1400 quid might sound like a lot for an electric guitar, but remember it will take me around 60 to 75 hours to build it exclusively for you, there will be at least £300 worth of hardware and as for the wood, it’s not cheap, this stuff doesn’t grow on trees!

If you have an idea for the specification that you would desire, let me know and I shall be able to give a much firmer price. If you want any more information about my ergo guitars or any other of my instruments, please do not hesitate contact me via my website.

Ergonomic Electric Guitar

Phil’s ergonomic guitar is now completed: the second ergo electric that I’ve built. The shape is based on the Steve Klein design, but when you look at his guitars (and most other ergos) you’ll notice that they are headless. Obviously Klein had his reasons for going down the headless route, but I can’t see the need for this. The head and tuners do add some weight to the instrument but it’s counterbalanced by leaving the body solid in the area behind the bridge. Take a look at the Klein below and you’ll see what I mean.

I can see more advantages of using a head compared to a headless design. Using a head you get a considerably wider choice of hardware. Phil suffers with back pain and when discussing the design of his guitar, it was clear that he would benefit from the neck leaning backwards in relationship to the body. Using this type of badass bridge you can have the strings about 20mm above the body’s surface which in turn kicks the neck backwards.

A headless design also limits your choice of strings to double-ball end strings which are a bit pricier and obviously not offered by as many string manufacturers.

I also feel that the head of a guitar (acoustic, classical, eclectic whatever) contributes to the sustain of the instrument.

There are a few subtle changes that this ergonomic guitar has over its 7 string predecessor; the body is more heavily contoured to improve comfort further. I’ve had a few enquiries about chambered and semi-acoustic bodied ergos, but if the upper portion of the body is hollow, you are drastically limiting how much you can contour it before breaking through into the hollow sections which compromise the ergonomic rationale. Also, being hollow, the body becomes lighter and I’m not 100% sure if this would upset the balance. I’ve also moved the jack-socket on to the front of the body from the edge. This guitar is primarily used sitting down, if the jack plug sticks out of a side mounted socket you limit the playing positions straight away.

I’ve kept to the straight through neck design, I’m convinced that this construction enhances the tone and sustain of the instrument (so are Alembic!).

I’ve never been impressed with passive tone controls on electric guitars so on this guitar we have three different types of pick-up each wired to a DPDT (centre off switch). The switches allow each pick-up to be turned on or off, the humbuckers can be used either in series or parallel mode and the single coil (middle) pick-up can be switched in or out of phase with the other two: this set-up gives 19 different combinations and hence a great range of tones.

The crowning glory is the spalted maple top, which the oil finish really brings to life. If play your electric guitar sitting down, you really need to try one of these odd looking guitar- you’ll be sold!

The two Phils progress....

You can see that the Phil Hare Signature model and Phil A’s ergonomic electric guitar are progressing nicely. Both have now been fretted and had the necks shaped.

You can see how I’ve contoured the body of the ergo guitar and also that by using a “Gibson” style bridge you can tilt the neck back slightly. This is in an effort to make the instrument more comfortable for Phil to play.

He came over last night for a second fitting and it became clear that I’m going to have to take more material away from the sloping section- this is to try to stop Phil’s right shoulder being stressed.

I love this photo of the end of the guitar with different sections of wood showing.

Production is going to slow up over the next couple of weeks, as I’m about to move into a new workshop! Once that’s up and running the two Phil’s will start to have their finish applied and the next guitar (Geoff’s Honduras rosewood and Engelmann 00.....sounds good eh?) will be underway.
Ciao!

Two Phils!

Ergonomic electric guitar

Just to confuse things, I’m currently making guitars for two Phils. Phil A came over the over evening to have a fitting for his ergonomic electric guitar. I’m not sure how many players use ergonomic guitars because they actually have a physical need to or because they are just plain weird! However, on saying that, I think that once you’ve played an ergonomic electric guitar you can see/feel the advantages straight away.

Phil A does have back problems and although it may sound a bit pompous, it’s good to feel that making a guitar for someone could have real benefits for them. The result of Phil’s visit was interesting-

Firstly, no dots on the fingerboard- if you’re looking at the front surface of the f-board your posture must wrong!

We looked at how the body needs to be contoured to stop Phil’s right shoulder coming too far forward.

The position of the volume control, so that it can be turned whilst his hand is resting on the bridge.

The position of the jack-socket so that he can sit down and play without a jack plug protruding and limiting how the guitar can be held.

Once the guitar nears completion, Phil will come over for a second fitting and we’ll decide if any more modifications can be made.

Phil Hare Signature Model

The other Phil’s (Phil Hare) guitar is also coming along nicely the binding and purfling are on, the neck has been fitted and the fingerboard glued on. Phil isn’t keen on adjustable truss-rods, so we’re just going for two strips of carbon fibre running down the neck and into the body. I’ve no doubt that this is more than sufficient and, to be honest, I’ve never been convinced of the need of an adjustable truss-rod on a well-made acoustic guitar!

Ergonomic electric guitar

So, Jonathan’s cutaway has been French polished and the last coat of Tru-Oil went on the neck today. The bindings are being glued on to Phil H’s guitar- as I use ebony bindings (opposed to plastic- yuck!) this process takes a number days. So, I thought that I’d crack on with another Phil’s (Phil A) guitar.

It was about this time last year that I completed a 7-string ergonomic electric guitar for Latin Jazz guitarist Stefano Kalonaris. Phil A’s guitar is going to be another ergo; 6 strings this time!

Phil really suffers with back pain and we’re hoping that this guitar will help to allow him to spend more time playing, without too much pain. It will have a “Badass” style bridge- this means that the neck will tilt backwards relative to the body and this should reduce some of left arm stretching that Phil finds uncomfortable. As you can see, I’m going for a neck thru’ construction again and the body is capped with some very nice spalted maple. You’ll notice that one thing that I like to do before gluing the body together is to roughly chop-out the pick-up recesses, this saves on routing later.

Arch-top braces

You saw in the last post how I did the rosette for Andy’s archtop: the next stage is to fit the bracing. I decided to use X bracing, as I like the idea of the bridge’s feet sitting directly above the braces; this is for two reasons. The first is structural, to spread the load over a larger area, and secondly, I think that the X brace helps to transmit the vibrations from the bridge across the width of the soundboard.
The fitting of the braces on an arch-top is really tricky, as the surface of the brace which is glued to the soundboard, has to twist and turn to follow the contour of the ‘board. A neat little trick is to use a washer (see below). The outside of the washer follows the contour and by resting a pencil on the inside, you can mark a line parallel to the surface. I also used a feeler gauge to test for any gaps.

Once you’ve got the two braces fitting the soundboard’s surface, whole problem is compounded by joining them together to make the X.

Richard’s mandolin

You can also see that Richard’s mandolin is coming along nicely; the English walnut back looks great and once polished it will be a stunner.

Ergonomic guitar II

You may remember my exuberance over how well the 7 string ergonomic guitar worked? Well, I said that I’d make a 6 string version and here is the start........ I’ve laminated maple, mahogany and some veneers to make up the straight thru neck blank and I’ve got some cracking spalted maple that I plan to use on the body. Stefano wanted his guitar to be quite understated in its design: this one is going to be a wee bit fancier! I hope to get this one built early next year and will be offering it up for sale on my website.

Ergo electric completed

Stefano’s ergonomic 7 string electric has been completed and I’m extremely pleased with the outcome. Here are some photos: a picture’s worth a thousand words!

Having completed the guitar and spent sometime playing it, I feel incredibly enthusiastic about this design. In the YouTube video you can see how the guitar balances perfectly when you play seated. At some point I shall make a 6 string version (the neck is already glued up!).



One thing I love about this guitar, is the use of mahogany and the Tru-oil finish. Over the years I’ve never been a great mahogany fan, seeing it just as a good wood for necks. However since I’ve been using Tru-oil or French polish, I’ve really warmed to it. The water-based lacquers that I used to use gave the wood a colder hue, whereas these more natural finishes bring out the real beauty of the wood.


El Corazon
El Corazon is being bound and purfled. You can see how the joint between the sound board and sides is completely cut away and how important the linings are in holding the whole thing together. I’ve used a red line around the soundboard, keeping the heart/blood theme going. The bindings are rosewood with a single line of boxwood laminated to it. The single line looks very elegant. Here you can see how the binding is held in place with clothe tape (50 metres!) whilst the glue dries.

A busy week in the Nava workshop

Acoustic magazine

The article in Acoustic magazine was published this week and I was very pleased with the outcome. Many thanks to the journalist, Petra Jones, for putting the article together. Hope that you all enjoy reading it!

El Corazon

This week El Corazon started to look a bit more like a guitar. The back, soundboard and sides were all glued together to make up the “box”. The next stage is purfling and binding. All the these stages now involve a couple of hours of work followed by a 12 or so hour wait to allow the glue to dry; so you must always have a number of instruments on the go to remain productive.

Ergo electric
The ergo electric is being finished with in “Tru-oil” again a slowish process: one coat applied, 24 hours to dry before the next coat.

30 year old Nava
Whilst I’ve been working on these two I’ve also been refurbishing this guitar---

I completed this guitar 30 years ago this November! It was made whilst I was working at the London Guitar Gallery and it was a prototype for our own style of acoustic; I’m amazed how modern looking it still is. It was used a demonstration model and I made a further three rosewood versions as commissions. The action needed some adjustment and I fitted a Headway transducer under the saddle. Since our move, my son hasn’t had access to an acoustic guitar so I thought that I’d get this one sorted out for him.

It’s interesting to look closely at something made so long ago. The 12 fret neck was simply reinforced with a 10mm square steel tube and is still as straight and true as the day I made it.
Also it’s clear that my heel obsession isn’t something new! This is what a cutaway heel should look like!

Parlour guitar
I’ve also been doing some more work on the parlour guitar and here’s the latest instalment.


Something different
Since moving to Norfolk we’ve been amazed by the number of beautiful churches that abound. I took this photo of another beautiful instrument in the Tydd St.Giles parish church-

Ergonomic electric

The ergonomic electric is progressing quite quickly and I’m aware that I’ve not said an awful lot about it. Stefano had a pretty clear idea about what he wanted: a very simple looking instrument with a mahogany body and neck and all black hardware. So no fancy stuff here! He mainly plays nylon string guitars, so the fingerboard/neck is a bit wider than a “normal” 7 string electric.

This website eLUTHERIE.org is where Stefano got his ideas/inspiration from. I must admit that I would never have thought of building a guitar like this, but when I sat with it balanced nicely on my lap, I thought-yeah, I get this! Once Stefano’s is completed, I’m inspired to a build a 6-string version, a lot fancier, as a speculative build: there is someone out there who does not know yet that this will be the dream guitar for them!

The old Rumsfeld jig was back in action today! The know unknown was: how much compensation should a 56 string tuned to C with 25.3” scale length have? The sliding saddle allows me to find this measurement empirically: I’ve also improved the jig by adding a transducer. The answer 7mm: I now know the position of the bridge relative the frets.

Interesting goings on in the Nava workshop!

El Corazon
I often get asked, “What’s the most difficult/challenging thing that you’ve done?” This rosette fits in that category!

I’ve just completed this rosette for El Corazon, Chris’s rosewood classical. The rosette was demanding on a number of levels: Chris commissioned this guitar in celebration of having a major heart operation, so clearly it’s a special instrument for him. The design needed to be more anatomical rather than twee; Amanda and I spent hours looking for suitable images, going right back to my father-in-law’s old copy of Leonardo’s Movement of the heart and blood! And below you’ll see how tricky it was to construct.

Firstly all the hearts had to be cut out of some pink ivory and I was very pleased that I managed to get them all virtually identical. They were then inlaid in to some Macassar ebony. Once the hearts were glued in, the ebony was cut into a circle.

Red and black lines were inlaid into the soundboard and the wood in between them routed away to take the ebony ring. The soundboard, by the way, is a beauty: it’s a German spruce one that I bought 30 years ago when I was working at the London Guitar Gallery.

That’s a brief description of how it was made, but it took a ridiculous amount of time to make: I’m sure that I would have got a better hourly rate fruit picking at one of the local farms!! On the other hand, it is pretty and I’m rather proud of it!!

7 string ergonomic electric guitar!!
In parallel with El Corazon I’m working on an electric guitar for Stefano, a Latin/Jazz guitarist. The two instruments couldn’t be more different. This one is based on the design of a Steve Klien ergonomic guitar. Stefano wants a 7 string, so although most guitars of this style are usually headless, we have decided to go with a head and mini tuners, as the hardware for a 7-string headless is prohibitively expensive. The head has to be small to cut down on weight so as you can see its shape is dictated by the old adage form follows function. It’s going to have a straight thru’ neck and here you can see the central core with the body halves ready to be glued on.

Not wishing to blow my own trumpet, there aren’t many luthiers about who would be willing to take on such diverse commissions and as I have said before, all of these experiences help you grow as a craftsman/designer/luthier.

Interesting website
If you’re interested in early romantic guitars this Japanese luthier has an interesting site. Click here for Crane guitars.

Acoustic magazine
The article about me will now be in issue 34. Order your copy now!!