Cyr Custom Guitars has developed a new series of hand-crafted electric instruments called the Oakhurst Series, after the city of Oakhurst, which is 30 miles or so south of Yosemite National Park, on Highway 41. Oakhurst is the location of the Mountain Peddler's Fair where we exhibited our instruments on Memorial and Labor Day weekends in 2003. This series will include 4 and 5-string basses and a 6-string guitar. We have also developed a 12-string electric guitar for this series. Oakhurst Basses Oakhurst Guitars The Oakhurst 12-String Building the Prototypes Gary's Fretless 5-String Shown here is the prototype for the Oakhurst 5-string bass. This is the first instrument produced in this series. Here's a summary of its features: Humbucking Musicman-style pickups made by Custom Shop Parts (www.customshopparts.com) Push-pull switches on the pickup volume controls so that you can split the coils Asymmetrical back profile, somewhat fatter on the bass side for strength, and slimmer on the treble side for playability Beautiful 5/16-inch thick quilt maple top on an alder body High-gloss lacquer finish on the body, semigloss on the neck 7-piece neck of maple, walnut, and koa with rosewood fretboard, medium-jumbo frets, and abalone shell postion markers Deluxe cast brass bridge and through-the-body string attachment Gibson-style speed knobs Six-screw neck attachment, anchored in steel threaded inserts in the neck for strength with no risk of stripping out the screw holes The basses will be available with a variety of pickup options--actually just about anything you want. Features will include a through-the-body bridge, Gotoh or Carvin sealed bass tuners, a seven-piece neck made of maple, walnut, and koa, and a rear control cavity. It will be available with active electronics too. The basses are priced as follows: The Oakhurst Bass comes standard with the Musicman-style pickups as shown in the pictures above.     5 string  4 string Quilt or Flame Maple Cap on Alder  $1300  $1200 Solid Alder $1150  $1050 Various options are available as well:     5 string   4 string Coil-split wiring  $75  $75 Bartolini J  $80   $70 Bartolini P/J  $150  $100 Kent Armstrong Soapbar  $50  $50 The Oakhurst electric guitar comes standard with a pair of Kent Armstrong humbuckers and a Gibson-style Tunomatic bridge and stop tail piece. The guitar will also be available with a number of options, including: Body choices: Solid Alder is standard equipment Flame or Quilt-capped alder - $100.00 extra Walnut and other exotic woods at extra cost Pickup configurations (some combinations cost extra): Three single-coil vintage AlNiCo-magnet Kent Armstrong pickups Two Single-Coil and one Humbucking - Kent Armstrong Two humbucking pickups (standard) Other pickups available - just ask for a quote! Bridge configurations: Deluxe thru-the-body Hardtail Vintage Fender-style tremolo Gibson-style bridge and stop-bar tailpiece (Standard) Wilkinson or Floyd Rose tremolo is available at extra cost Seven-piece quarter-sawn maple and walnut neck with koa, walnut, or mahogany headstock side stripes and top-quality sealed diecast tuners At this point the prototype for the Oakhurst Guitar is almost finished. The three pictures below show the guitar in its present state. The guitar needs the following: A cover plate for the control cavity on the back of the body] Final fret leveling Adjustment of the action and intonation     6-String Electric Quilt or Flame Maple Cap on Alder  $1200 Solid Alder $1050 12-string guitar  $200 upcharge The latest project out of SMCTek Custom Guitars is a 12-String electric guitar. Steve undertook this project because he has been wanting an electric 12-string since he was 17, and this year he had the means to do realize that dream (it only took a little less than 40 years, but who's counting?). Warning to Roger McGuinn: look out, here comes Steve! The guitar has the following features: Solid alder two-piece body Seven-piece laminated neck: of quarter-sawn Hard-rock Maple, Walnut, and Bolivian Rosewood, with an Indian Rosewood fretboard 24 Vintage size frets Side position marker dots only Double-action truss rod Three Kent Armstrong pickups: VS4 and VS4R single coil vintage-style pickups with AlNiCo staggered magnets M214 Humbucking pickup in the neck position Pickups mounted in gold-plated metal mounting rings All gold hardware Below are some pictures of the guitar.This guitar is still under construction--the neck only has two coats of sanding sealer so far, and the body has only been rough-sanded so far.   Having gotten this far, Steve has decided that the headstock is too long, and he plans to shorten it by taking the last inch or so off the top end. Also, it's a little too narrow, but nothing can be done about that! The prototype for the 5-string bass is shown in the pictures at the top of this page. The next two pictures show the neck and body shortly after work was begun on this project (the neck won't really be that wide--it can't be cut to the right width until the fretboard is glued on--and the fretboard was on order from Warmoth at the time the picture was taken: The next two pictures show the neck a week later, after the fretboard was installed. Here's what's been done on the neck: The truss rod was mounted in place with silicone to prevent it from rattling The fretboard was glued in place The neck was cut to shape with the bandsaw The back profile was shaped using the newly-acquired oscillating drum sander, which was also used to do the rough sanding. The edges of the fretboard were sanded straight using our other new piece of equipment: a belt/disk sander Abalone shell 1/4-inch dot inlays were installed in the fretboard, and 2mm white dots in the edge of the fretboard The neck was sanded with increasingly finer sandpaper grits: 100, 150, 220, and 320 Four coats of lacquer sanding sealer have been sprayed on, sanding with 600-grit sandpaper between coats The blue tape is used to cover the fretboard to make sure no lacquer gets on the top surface. The remaining steps in the process of building the neck are the installation and leveling of the frets, the application of lemon oil to the fretboard, and the installation of the tuning machines. The last two pictures are of the Oakhurst bass prototype's body, after the body has been sanded, the neck pocket cut, 3 coats of sanding sealer sprayed on, and about 3 coats of gloss lacquer applied. Each time Steve starts putting lacquer on a body, he's amazed at how much the grain of the wood is brought out by the lacquer. This is one beautiful quilt-maple top on this bass! The piece of wood is attached to the neck pocket so that Steve has something to hold onto while spraying on the lacquer without messing up the lacquer while it's still wet. Works like a charm, and the screw holes will be hidden by the neck when it's bolted onto the body. We have also started work on a prototype for the Oakhurst Series guitar, a 6-string electric with the following characteristics: Offset-waist body design that suggests the Stratocaster, but with a slimmer, more modern appearance. Oakhurst-style tilt-back headstock design Seven-piece laminated maple, walnut, and koa neck with a double-action truss rod that adjusts at the headstock 24-fret fingerboard with 10" radius, medium frets, and abalone-shell position markers Two humbucking pickups with coil-splitting capability on both pickups - the prototype will have Kent Armstrong pickups Clean no-pickguard design and rear controls cavity The bridge can be hardtail, Fender-style tremolo, or Gibson-style Tunomatic bridge and stop tail piece. The prototype will have a Tunomatic bridge. Here are some pictures of the necks we are building for the Oakhurst prototypes: The bass necks are mounted using stainless-steel machine screws that screw into T-nuts installed under the fretboard. This way, we'll never have to worry about stripped out wood-screw holes in the heel of the neck, since the screws are gripped by zinc-plated steel inserts that will never strip out: Below is a picture of the back side of the Oakhurst guitar headstock with the tuners installed. The headstock is tilted back at about 10 degrees. This neck has a Slim C profile, but we can do it in Vintage V or Beefy D profile as well. The neck is built with flat-sawn maple in this case, with walnut, and koa stripes (the two small stripes on the sides of the headstock are koa in the prototype, but they can be mahogany or walnut as well. This is the back of the guitar body, showing the neck-attachment screws and bushings. This method enables us to contour the back side of the neck pocket to allow easier access to the highest frets on the fingerboard. Next we have more pictures of the Oakhurst Series Guitar prototype: This bass was built for Gary, who was one of the people who came by when we exhibited our instruments at the Mountain Peddler's Faire in Oakhurst CA over Memorial Day weekend in 2003. Gary was looking for a bass with the following specifications: Fretless neck with: Ebony fingerboard No position markers Side markers at the fret positions 33-inch scale Slim C profile Maple/Walnut/Rosewood 7-piece Oakhurst-style neck Double-action truss rod Graphite nut Bartolini Jazz-bass style pickups Active electronics with 3-band EQ Black hardware Dunlop straplocks Neck-through construction Through-the-body attachment of the strings at the bridge Mahogany body wings with flame koa trim The pictures that follow show the bass under construction:   This is the central core of the bass--the neck assembly, which will run all the way thru the body in this case. The center stripe is black walnut, with quarter-sawn maple on either side. The heastock has two trim pieces of flame koa, plus two pieces of flame maple.   This picture shows the rough-cut body wings, ready to be glued to the neck core of the bass. At this point, we were waiting for the koa trim pieces to arrive from Hawaii. The plan is to put a 1/8" thick layer of koa between the neck core and the body wings, but I had order the koa, because I didn't have enough of it in the shop.   This picture shows the body after assembly, but prior to finish shaping and sanding. The fingerboard and truss rod have also been installed.   This picture shows the completed bass. I forgot to take pictures before I delivered the bass to Gary at the Labor Day Peddler's Faire, so I asked him to take some for me.   This picture is another of the completed bass. You can see the flame figure in the koa body stripes clearly in this shot.   This picture shows the back of the body -- it shows the cover for the electronics and the battery box, as well as well as the string ferrules.   This picture shows Headstock with the SMC logo. The strings are flatwounds from Carvin, and the tuners are made by Gotoh. The bridge and other hardware came mostly from WD Music, and the active electronics module is the one that Carvin uses in their basses.