226 – 260521 ZLP13-Les Paul – Pine Tabletop #2 – Zachary Handcrafted Guitars | Bass| Pedals | Strings

Inspiration

This is a very special project. A series of 6 Zachary guitars made from an old pine tabletop I found in someone's garbage.
If you are looking for a kit guitar assembled for you for over $4000, you will have to look elsewhere.

It all started when I was riding my bike one day and people had put their waste out for pickup. I saw this pine table and was immediately upset, as I always get when I see anyone throwing away wood, any type of wood. Why would anyone throw wood into the garbage? It just seems so odd and deviant to me. It should be a punishable crime to throw out wood or waste wood in any way. Wood can always be repurposed or in the worst case scenario it can be used as fuel for survival. Throwing away a beautiful piece of pine tabletop is what a domesticated toddler would do in a boomer neighborhood, who is nothing more than a brainwashed zombie. This is what society has become and what was created by mass arrested development and indoctrination.

So I returned to this place with my vehicle and picked up this table. I knew immediately what I would do with it. This was a beautiful piece to me. I noticed that unfortunately it was thinner than the 1¾" needed for traditional Fender or Gibson-style guitar bodies. I brought it home to my shop and kept it there for over a year just thinking about it, until the inspiration was burring inside of me to give this tabletop a new life and make the finest guitars from it. Guitars for real players. Fully realizing that the same toddler who threw out this table would never buy any guitar which you see in this series. I understand that these guitars have no commercial value in the world we live in and to the type of person who is the guitar consumer. These guitars however are the finest any REAL player will ever play.

As you can see in the pics of the tabletop below, I plotted where the individual guitar bodies would be cut out. So what resulted is a series of 6 Zachary guitars. Thicknesses are a bit thinner than production Telecasters and Les Pauls but it ended up just perfect in terms of light-weight and comfort. I am thinking that 1¾" may be too thick for a solid-body guitar. This Pine Tabletop series gave me the opportunity to try out different pickups that I also build.

I was very careful and made sure that I left the tops undamaged and unaltered, including its original lacquer finish. Tops are identical to what they were when still a table. I can imagine that generations in that family had sat around this table. Kids having lunches on it when they came home from school. Kids did their homework on it and art and crafts (notice the paint marks). The whole family had dinner on this table and lives were spent around this table. I grew up in this neighborhood, so I am familiar with the lifestyles here. It was the typical suburban lifestyle of the middle class in the 60s, 70s and to the present day when this table was finally thrown out. I even forgot which street and which house I picked it up from.

These are my favorite kind of guitars. I really don't like museum-piece, pristine, fancy and opulent, exotic wood instruments. They are just gaudy to me and not for playing. Those are made for the toddlers.

These tops are untouched, preserved and even uncleaned, exactly as they were as the table, but the rest of the guitar, including all of the hardware, I reliced (distressed) to match the vibe of the old table and its history. Notice that the tabletop had a heavy Oak mechanism underneath it, which I had to dismantle and remove. This left impressions in the wood, as well as bolt and screw holes, as evidenced on the back and sides of the guitar bodies. I did plug most of these screw and big bolt holes in the back and sides of the bodies.

This type of a handmade instrument is incomparable to the sterile, mass manufactured, plastic-covered, guitar-looking-objects with bar codes in them, which are what pass for guitars today. Look what passes as humans today. No wonder.

No two Zachary guitars are ever alike.

This Guitar
The unique thing about this guitar is that its the exact shape of the Vintage Gibson Les Paul Special, but thinner. Not as thin as a Gibson Melody maker but thinner than the Les Paul Special or Junior. In my opinion its the perfect thickness for ergonomics and light weight. The other interesting thing that it has a Maple neck and fingerboard, which is a feature associated with Fender guitars. It also has the Vintage Gibson scale length of 624 mm, which is the same as on a Vintage Les Paul but shorter than that of modern Les Paul guitars.

The Aluminum bridge is what is used on Gretsch guitars with Bigsby vibrato units. I modified this bridge by eliminating its rocking feature (since this guitar does not have a Bigsby) by machining the bottom of the bridge flat. I also cut off both ends of the bridge, since I did not need the post holes. I then placed the bridge on a perfectly sized wood base. The bridge assembly is not permanently glued or screwed to the top. It is essentially like a movable bridge, like found on archtop guitars, as it just sits on the top of the guitar body, held down by string tension. This bridge mounting method works flawlessly, it is very stable and it can be precisely place for perfect intonation.
Just a very organic, and appealing guitar to play. It is in a different dimension from the mass produced, plastic-covered, sterile atrocities that you may be accustomed to.