Search Ampcat.com: Ampcat's Gear (Guitars) The Toad Guitar I first got the idea for the Toad Guitar after meeting a Russian immigrant named Oleg Zadorohznny in 1997. I was searching for a wood working shop in the Bay Area that could (and would) do custom one-off jobs. The project I originally had in mind was a wooden box designed by a friend, and Oleg was the only one willing to take it on. I got to know Oleg, and eventually made an arrangement with him that allowed me to use his shop to build guitars (or whatever). I originally wanted to build an acoustic, but I lacked many of the specialized tools, and it just wasn't worth buying them all to make one guitar. I finally decided to build (in my opinion) the ultimate electric guitar - a Telecaster, modified to fit my personal tastes. I truly believe that the Tele is the finest possible shape for an electric guitar - I think Leo hit it the first time, and everything since has been a step backward. It's not as elegant as the Les Paul shape, but it's an innovative design, with the right touch of class... ah heck, Teles fucking rock, that's it and that's all. I've always liked Les Pauls - in fact, that's all I used to play, for years. I eventually got tired of them, for a couple reasons: 1. The frets are too damn low - This drives me nuts. Yeah, I know I can get them refretted, but why should I? Why not buy a guitar that is DESIGNED for bigger frets? 2. Scale length - I've grown tired of the 24 3/4 scale - I've got big hands, and I find the quarters a little cramped near the top. Also, the shorter the scale, the less tension is on the strings - more tension means greater amplitude, with means your guitar is louder & sounds better. Sorry Doug, it's true! You know it!!! HAHAHAHAHA 3. Fretboard width - along with the short scale length, the fretboard is too damn narrow. 4. Les Pauls sound muddy - again, I'm sorry but it's true - too much mahogony and too little string tension make a big, fat, MUDDY sound. However, there are some things I love about Les Pauls: 1. Binding - I love binding. It looks good, and it's easy to fix when you smash the edge of your guitar into sharp objects. 2. Pickups - For high-output, low noise, you simply have to have humbuckers. 3. Inlay - I LOVE well done inlay - nothing adds a touch of class to a guitar like the remnants of a snail shell. Unfortunately, Gibson only puts shell inlay on it's top of the line guitars - everything else is PLASTIC! It's true! FUCKING GIBSON!?!?!?! Where the fuck to they get off charging $2000 for a guitar and putting Mother-of FUCKING Toilet seat inlay on it? What the fuck???? 4. Fretboard radius - 12" is the way to go. 5. Angled neck - this is something that simply feels better when you're playing it. Unfortunately, it's hard to attach angles necks to bolt on guitars (although I did this on several guitars, see The Dunn Custom) At the time I began to build this guitar, I lived in a very small apartment in Pacifica, about 10 minutes south of San Francisco on the coast. I didn't have alot of room, I had sold most of the guitars I had owned previously, so I figured my ultimate guitar should also be an "all-in-one" guitar as well, incorporating all my favorite elements of guitar styles & construction. First I needed wood. I thought long and hard about the perfect wood - what would have the right density, have a fair amount of weight (I like a heavy guitar), yet remain resonant & not too bright sounding? I originally decided that walnut would be perfect, except that visually, it was pretty uninteresting compared with other available woods. I almost went with Koa (I even went so far as to buy a beautiful bookmatched flamed koa top, it's still in my garage - I'll use it one of these days), and then I found a website called www.woodnut.com. I called Michael, the owner, and the wife and I ended up driving out to Grass Valley, near Sacramento (a 3 hour round trip), and it was worth it - Michael has the most impressive collection of California (French) Claro walnut I've ever seen. We spent about 3 hours with his family, talking & rummaging through his warehouse. I've been meaning to go back out ever since, but time has been a little tight (work and all), but I believe I'll be making a trip soon, now that this guitar is finished. I ended up purchasing a 3" thick slab of walnut, dimension were roughly 25" x 35", for around $250 (worth every penny). I also bought an additional piece from the same slab, roughly 40" x 6". I tool it all to Oleg's shop, and got to work. The first thing I did was ship the long, thin piece to a guitar builder in San Diego named Bill Zolla, and asked him to build a Tele neck, with an ebony fretboard, but no inlay or frets - I was planning on doing the inlay myself. He made a beautiful neck, and I promptly destroyed it. Well, I don't know if I destroyed it, but it wasn't pretty. I had done a little inlay work before (in fact, during my brief employment at Taylor Guitars I worked on abalone rosette inlay), but this didn't work out too well. Fortunately, all pictures of this debacle were lost... After I got the neck back, I got to work on the body. I planed the slab to thickness (I actually went a little thinner than a stock Tele, as it is such heavy wood), and then I cut out the body shape. This went very well - I cut, shaped and sanded the body, and it appears in these photos exactly as I milled it. It's not EXACTLY the same shape as a Tele, I took a few liberties with it. Next I routed out the neck cavity - this went ok, and although it wasn't perfect, I felt I could live with it - no one would know but me. Well, about this time work started getting pretty hectic (I had left my job a Persistence Software, and right around this time I accepted a position at Netscape), and I pretty much stopped working on it. Netscape was in Mountain View, and Oleg's shop was in San Mateo, and that's a shitty commute in the afternoon. I started surfing around the web and found a number of luthiers that I considered sending the guitar to for completion, and I finally decided on Ed Roman. I had heard good things and bad things about Ed, but one thing is undeniable - his shop produces the finest custom finishes & repairs that I've ever seen. The only problem (and I didn't know this at the time) is that he is slower than hell! I shipped him what I had done, along with all the hardware & electronics (I picked out & purchased everything beforehand), and it took almost a year to complete. However, if I had to do it again, I would in a heartbeat - the work is that good. A couple interesting things about the Toad Guitar: 1. The neck inlay a stylized lily design I stole from a picture of a Breedlove guitar. 2. The headstock inlay is my own design - it's my personal brand, everything I do has this logo on it somewhere (hence the name of the guitar). 3. The binding on the neck & body is flamed maple - I had originally suggested this to Ed Roman because I was (mistakenly) under the impression that PRS guitars had maple binding (I had never looked at one up close). He informed me that I was wrong, but he went ahead and did it anyway, and it came out looking GREAT. 4. There is only 1 pot (volume) and 1 switch (pickup selector) - tone pots are for the weak! The volume pot is also a push-pull switch, so I can split the coils - or, more acurately, recombine them - Ed had wired it up with the default (pushed in) being the humbuckers. Personally, I think a Tele should be a Tele, so I re-wired it to make the default position single-coil. 5. The neck is solid Ebony - the fretboard is african ebony (the black stuff), the rest of the neck is macassar ebony. In fact, Ed Roman couldn't identify the walnut I had sent him, and he assumed it was macassar ebony. In truth, it looks close enough that it looks like the neck & body could have come from the same tree. 6. I had Ed incorporate his exclusive "All-Access" neck joint - it can be seen from the back. Basically it's just a cutaway, only it's cut into the back of the guitar, rather than the edge. It makes ALOT of difference, very easy to reach the upper register. Well, that's pretty much the story of the Toad Guitar. Here's the specs: Wood: Walnut body, Macassar Ebony neck, Ebony fretboard Pickups: Carvin Neck: Jumbo frets, 12' radius Hardware: Gold, Sperzel locking tuners Inlay: Mother-of-Pearl, Abalone Copyright © 2000 AMPCAT.COM