Building a Guitar from a Headstock!

Very much a design exercise, the Vampyre started life as a 1970s neck which had been kicking around the workshop. The headstock had originally been re-shaped when an Explorer style body had been contemplated. However it was decided to do something a little different.

The body is made from Zebrano, but as this is a particularly heavy wood, it is constructed in 3 layers, with both the front and rear being book matched. The centre section also has 4 hollow cavities to reduce weight and improve the tonal characteristics. To keep the natural look, the body is finished in Wax, and the knobs are made from the same piece of wood as the body. The neck has had a new truss rod, and an Ebony fingerboard with abalone markers (the old ‘fingerboard’ was a thin piece of veneer !), and unusually for Ethos guitars, is bolted to the body. The extra switches are a coil tap (both pickups) and a phase switch for extra tonal variations.