They gave me tools and said I could make anything I wanted. How often does that happen?

Aesthetics in Design was a “go-and-build-it” class, highlighting form where function is commonly the emphasis in engineering education. Armed with a graduate-level skillset and full access to the campus’s myriad of resources, we were turned loose to find out what creative products might come of this open-ended tasking. I wanted to treat it like the unique opportunity it was – to make anything with nearly any tool I’d never have at home. We got out what we put in.

The class encompassed two projects: An “upcycled” project made of reused/recycled materials and a main project of a quality equal to its level of focus. For the former I converted an old atlas into a unique picture frame – or “Bookframe” – for our family bookshelf. For the latter and primary project, I designed and built my first custom electric guitar.

Extol: Custom Electric Guitar

If I was going to make an instrument, I wanted to make an heirloom – not a first guitar that looked like a first guitar. And so I wrestled with starting at all, lest I fail to finish or make something I wouldn’t be proud to hang on the living room wall. But given the uniqueness of the opportunity to create at will, I decided to aim high anyway – higher than my current skillset allowed. I’d need to learn a lot in a short amount of time.

Musical instruments are a near-perfect amalgamation of form and function, appealing to us auditorily, visually, and even tactilely. I’ve enjoyed learning to play the guitar since high school, but my experience had been almost exclusively acoustic up to this point. Designing and making this custom guitar is, therefore, my first true experience with electric guitars… at all. I’d had a desire to make an original guitar myself for years, and this class offered the perfect chance. To me, it was worth the long shot.

My guitar is a semi-hollow body design of flamed black walnut set atop a hollowed back of African mahogany. The rounded lower bout of the body shape design honors the sound-driven shape of acoustic guitars. The upper bout meets the neck at an apex on the left side, and the right side cutaway is accented with a flat-edged horn unique to this guitar. It also features a single f-shaped sound hole reminiscent of those used on string instruments for centuries. The dark tones of the wood and oil finish make the guitar feel “warm” as its sound resonates likewise.

The neck is also made of mahogany with a walnut headstock veneer and ebony fretboard. The headstock design is my own, and its symmetric “horns” incorporate the same lines of the body’s cutaway horn.

The guitar is configured with two-volume, two-tone control over two Seth Lover PAF humbucker pickups wired through a three-way switch. Chrome pickup cover plates and tuners accent with black pickup rings, bridge and saddles, and knobs to emphasize the guitar’s warmness of appearance and tone.

Subtle and defining details of the guitar, I used woodburning to make inscriptions both inside the f-shaped sound hole and around the perimeter of the headstock.

The sound hole’s inscription is in ancient Hebrew and reads in English, “praise and extol and honor the King of Heaven,” taken from the Bible’s Daniel 4:37. From these words is derived the name I chose for the guitar: Extol.

Ancient Greek surrounds the headstock and reads, “And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.'” (Revelation 21:5). The former is thematic of the instrument and player’s purpose for creation, and the latter is a hopeful forward-looking to Jesus’ return at the end of the age.

You can read more about the Extol custom guitar and its defining details here, and you can see its design and construction process here.

The Bookframe

The Bookframe is an atlas turned picture frame housing an art piece and made specifically to blend into the aesthetic of our home’s vintage style bookshelf.

My wife and I had purchased a print from one of our favorite musicians and artists: Sarah Sparks. In it, she makes her own rendition of the wardrobe from C.S. Lewis’ children’s classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Underneath is a line taken from Sparks’ own Narnia-themed music album which reads, “So you might turn the page or you might shut the book but the Truth is still Truth even if you don’t look.”

To integrate with the book and pages emphasis of the quote – and with the vintage books on our shelf – the ideal material for carrying the print was a genuine, large, old book.

We picked up the atlas from a flea market, and I set to altering it to carry Sparks’ print behind glass. I also wanted it to stand upright on its own – without damaging the aged binding or needing anything to lean against.

I removed a central section of the front cover just smaller than the 8.5″x11″ dimensions of the print. In so doing, I cut a “countersink” around the inside of the cover to glue a glass pane to the same. A series of the book’s pages were removed and cut with a similar window in the middle to both show the print and hold it into place by its corners. As the print itself isn’t glued inside, the Bookframe can be used for any picture or artwork we decide in the future.

Inside the back cover, a metal bracket holds the atlas’s pages from the bottom so they won’t sag and damage the binding. The same bracket carries a kickstand protruding through the back cover for the Bookframe to stand on its own. Finally, the covers and pages are held together by a replaceable strand of twine connected to the back cover and wound about a button on the front cover.

You can read more about the Bookframe and its construction here.

They said I could make anything I wanted…

We got out what we put in. From these hours and efforts, I’m grateful to take away a new heirloom instrument, a novel piece for our home, and a dense catalog of lessons in ideation, design, and woodworking that marry function and form. These hours and efforts were well spent and will be enjoyed in our home for years – even generations – as memories and conversation pieces for our family and friends.