RIc inspired project

[jakeisjake]

I had an idea for a project. Lord knows I won't be building it...I don't have the skills. But my bud does. He has built numerous guitars and they have all been pretty good. Prior to building guitars, he built flyable wooden aircraft...so, he's that kind of guy.

What I was thinking of is a 330 shape solid body. Neck through.

I haven't seen anything like that...and that makes me wonder...would it be too heavy?

[fuzzjunkie]

I think it would depend on the wood density? And the 330 is a bigger body than a Telecaster, so even a lighter block will end up heavier compared to a smaller body guitar. Mahogany would not be a good choice. Maybe pine or basswood?

[bodhi]

You can play with the thickness of the body to cut some weight, and also consider chambering (like modern Les Pauls and single-cut Gretches) to get some further reductions. The total weight comes down to the volume of the wood, species chosen and then of course the pickups and other parts.

There are probably some free 3D models around for Gibson ES models, which could probably give out the total volume so you could get a ballpark estimate... Pine or basswood and the like dent pretty easily, so while they are lighter weight you probably want to consider that (some guitars use a pretty heavy finish to work around this).

Some of the ES-style guitars come without f-holes, so actually hollowing out the wings on the inside could be done fairly easily to reduce weight, keeping the solid body appearance.

[bodhi]

My wires crossed there for a bit, wasn't thinking about Rickenbackers! But the same thoughts mostly apply

The listed weight for the hollow 330 on Rickenbacker's website is already 3,6 kg, so without something done to the wings for weight reduction I'd assume it'd be uncomfortably heavy.

[jakeisjake]

thanks for your input, folks...

[Snake Hips]

You could always scale the size of the body down. Rickenbacker 350SH Susanna Hoffs Signature is also something to consider, full scale 350 similar idea of 330 but smaller or Chandler 555. There is also the 220/250 shape which may give you an idea of scale if you wanted to go with that idea.