Innovative Custom and Semi-Custom Electric Guitars

 

 

Full text of Clint's interview with Chris Kies of Premier Guitar magazine. Unless you want to run the risk of learning a lot more about Clint then you really want to know, stop now. You have been warned...

 

What is your first memory of the guitar?

There have been guitars in my life for as long as I can remember. My father, a physicist, played classical and Spanish guitar. Some of my clearest memories of childhood are of my dad sitting in the kitchen playing “Capricho Arabe” while my siblings and I cleaned up after dinner. His tastes in recorded music ranged from classical to jazz and some blues, so I grew up listening to everything from Til Eulenspiegel and The Merry Widow to Charlie Byrd and Josh White. My mother used to forbid us to listen to White’s recording of “Jelly Jelly”, which was a drag because we all used to love to shout out the “Great God-a-mighty!” line, while having not a clue what the rest of the lyrics meant. Of course now I understand what her objection was, but really she worried for nought. I guess it was just a more innocent time.

Anyway, both my older brothers and my younger sister went on to learn guitar, but I gravitated toward drums. When I got tired of schlepping all that gear, I picked up the bass, and later taught myself some simple fingerpicking James-Taylorish stuff so I could play for my own son.

How did you get first involved with, and how long have you been building guitars?

I lived in Los Angeles for years, working in the film industry as a cameraman. One of my co-workers, a talented dolly grip and guitar player named Phil Heath, used to build lovely left-handed customs for himself. In about 1994 I got to the point in my bass playing when I decided I needed a 5-string, and figured it would be fun to follow Phil’s example and make it myself. That first one was kind of a mess, but it planted a seed and I kept building and refining in an effort to produce my dream bass. It’s funny, kind of like the cobbler’s children who have no shoes, but my 5-string is still unfinished in my closet!

I think I built my first 6-string guitar in about ‘95 or ’96. It had an elongated, bass-influenced upper horn, edge bevel and offset waist, and was the progenitor of the Signature customs I build today.

You mentioned on your site that you avoided building replicas for years, what was the final thing that opened the doors to re-doing (Black Mesa-style) the classics?

It always seemed redundant to me to expend a huge amount of my time and energy just going over ground which has been so thoroughly plowed over the years. I wanted to find new and better ways to build things within the parameters and restraints imposed by the physics of lightweight, hand-held tension structures, rather than simply replicating familiar instruments.

But when I started building with the TorsionLogic neck mount system, I realized that it might be attractive to players who love their classic styles to have a familiar-looking and -feeling guitar with two full octaves and improved upper-fret access. Actually, it was my wife who said, after listening to me rant about how so many guitarists never look beyond the Strat, “Well, why not build a Strat with your neck system?” It was a real lightbulb moment, and I have her to thank for it.

What’s the TorsionLogic neck mounting system?

The idea of providing as much range and upper fret access as possible has always seemed sort of axiomatic to me, so I initially focused on neck-through styles because I could really hog out a lot of cutaway space without sacrificing structural integrity. But the shortcomings of neck-through became obvious; the bright, sometimes brittle tone and inability to dismount the neck for repair. I started experimenting with the long-tenon/set neck methods used by so many wonderful luthiers, but those styles have some of those same issues plus some others, like the loss of strength when routing pickup cavities. It was at that point that the idea of mounting the neck in the back occurred to me.

Why is it a superior way of mounting necks?

As I note on my website, there is scientific evidence which supports the argument that bolt-on neck styles offer superior resonance and sustain around the fundamental and successive harmonics (R.M. Mottola, American Lutherie #91, Fall 2007). So it seemed to me that to produce the best tone possible, I needed to start with a bolt-on style.

If you then move the neck pocket around to the back of the body, the neck heel can be made a lot longer, greatly increasing the contact patch between the neck and body without losing any of the neck “meat” to pickup cavities. Additionally, the torsional load produced by string tension pulls the neck into the body, which further improves the strength of the structure. There is no honking slab of wood sticking out of the body to screw the neck to, so there is plenty of room to sculpt the joint and make the cutaways a lot deeper as well.

It’s really a way to incorporate the best features of all three neck mount styles without the disadvantages.

What do these improvements offer the player?

The advantages for the player are: full two-octave neck with sculpted neck heel and deep cutaways, extended neck/body contact area to maximize the tonal influences of all the tonewoods in the instrument, and the ability to remove the neck if it needs repair or replacement.

What is the idea/concept behind the Logicasters?

I used to grumble about the notion of musicians, who are supposed to be the men and women out ‘walking point’ for a society, pushing boundaries and making us look at things from different perspectives, but who can tend to be fairly hidebound when it comes to their instruments, clinging to their fifty year-old Fenders.

But rather than keep bitching about it I decided to try to understand it, so my thinking has come around to the notion that when you’re out there exploring the frontier, maybe it’s comforting to have something familiar slung over your shoulder.

Therefore, my goal is to produce guitars which visually, tonally and ergonomically resemble some of the classic electrics, but which address some of the greatest shortcomings of those instruments.

What do you feel are some of the flaws on the LPs, Strats and Teles and how have you addressed them with your Logicaster models?

“Flaws” might be a bit strong. These designs have proved themselves over time, and I just felt there was some room to make incremental improvements.

With Fenders, it’s the short fretboard, the massive neck/body joint and the flat headstock which requires those string trees to get the strings to meet the nut at a better angle.

With the Gibsons, it’s the glued-in (and therefore permanent) neck and the lack of a volute at the headstock to provide greater strength in this particularly vulnerable area. I’m also not a huge fan of the Tune-O-Matic bridges because they’re not fully adjustable and there is such a small contact area with the body.

So the Logicasters all feature 24-fret TorsionLogic bolt-on necks, deep cutaways and angled headstocks with nice beefy volutes. I opt for bridges and trems which have as much contact with the body as possible, but will defer to the preference of the customer.

What’s the story behind the name?

The Logicaster name is intended to emphasize the logic of attaching the neck this way, and at the same time give a nod to the line of classic “-casters”. Ok, maybe it’s sort of derivative, but all thought is derivative to some extent and I want the prospective customer to feel more comfortable with the idea of trying out some newer concepts packaged in a familiar way. My 16 year-old son, a talented young guitarist himself, says, “...it’s like an old dog with new tricks!”

How much are you willing to allow guitarists to customize their orders?

The Black Mesa Signature models are fully custom. Customers can modify the shape, specify everything from scale length to woods to frets to electronics to controls and control placement to hardware type and color, basically everything. But each instrument becomes an exercise in re-inventing the wheel and the prices tend to reflect that.

The Logicasters are by definition less mutable; the attraction is primarily the familiarity, so people don’t want to mess with the basic construction. But they are encouraged to stipulate woods, fret size, fretboard radius, hardware color and, to some degree, the hardware.
My intention has been to make a sort of “semi-production” guitar which could be personalized to a degree so they wouldn’t all be the same.

The Arrow looks like the old Jackson models – what are some improvements and changes you’ve made on those?

The Arrow was a full-custom order for a third-time repeat customer. The primary improvement was the incorporation of the TorsionLogic neck system, but he also had specific desires regarding body and fretboard woods, the fretboard inlays, the hardware and electronics. We used a one-piece black limba body, acrylized Macassar ebony fretboard, stainless frets, a Kahler trem, Steinberger gearless tuners and Seymour Duncan Blackouts. It’s like a Rhoads V on steroids. A “Rhoids V”, if you will…although that brings someting quite different to mind, doesn't it?

Do you build and use your own hardware?

I’ll build things which don’t require a machine shop or are necessary because of the unique Logicaster design. For instance, I have to make my own pickguards and pickup rings, and over the years have built hundreds of templates, jigs and special little tools. As far as the metal parts, I have occasionally had to fabricate special jackplates and such but I generally can rely upon the vast array of really well-made hardware available.

Why do you use Sheptone pickups?

Jeff is a friend and customer; he owns a Black Mesa 5-string bass and production Logicaster #1. I started using his pickups because he gave me the sort of personalized attention and advice I was looking for, and his pickups are the best I’ve heard. He will “voice” a set of pickups to produce a certain tone in specific woods, and works with me to try to replicate the vintage ‘caster tone in guitars whose materials and physical characteristics are somewhat different from the originals.

What are some other models you’d like to tackle and reinvent in the future?

I think “reinvent” is far too big a word to describe what I am trying to do. I admire and respect the creators of those iconic guitars. Leo Fender, Les Paul and Seth Lover stepped into an essentially empty field and built the foundations and solid structures upon which my colleagues and I can add our respective touches; some put on whole rooms and some just bits of gingerbread. To stretch the metaphor, my additions are sort of like better doorknobs or a more comfortable couch.

That said, the basic strategy could certainly be applied to many of them. I am attracted to the idea of a carved-top model like the Les or PRS, especially the latter because they made the interesting choice of halting the neck profile way short of the body. I think there’s definitely room for improvement there. A single-cutaway LP with 24 frets and a sleek bolt-on neck might be interesting, too. At the moment, though, I am concentrating on perfecting and refining the process for the first two models.


Anything else on the horizon for Black Mesa?

Slow but steady growth would be nice, and I believe our timing is good. I am optimistic about the gradual improvement in the nation’s financial health, and as the economy grows, hopefully Black Mesa can grow along with it. I’d like to be able to build a small production facility with a few dedicated employees who share my enthusiasm for this quirky and demanding but ultimately rewarding endeavor. It’s a pretty cool thing to take a bunch of lumber and metal gizmos and cut and carve and piece them together into something people use to make music.

I believe in the idea of constant improvement. I am gratified that people seem to be responding to the Logicasters, proving to me that maybe I’m not quite as crazy as I thought and there may actually be life after the movie business. With luck, the ideas will keep coming and I can continue to improve my little niche of the guitar world.

 

all images on this website ©Clinton S. Dougherty