ROMEO ROMEO - NEW BUILD (CURRENTLY FOR SALE)

Hey gang, here are some more detailed shots of the Romeo & Juliet build I posted a vide of a couple of days ago -  I’d been holding onto this box for about 5 months and in between other projects I’d pick it up and think what in the hell am I going to do with this? I mean, it’s a really lovely looking box but, unlike more traditional Cigar  Boxes it’s firstly really heavy and secondly it’s not made of solid timber, I believe it is a whole lot of compressed sawdust and cardboard… With that in mind I knew it was never going to make a really sweet sounding acoustic build. The question then became how to make it sound as sweet as it looked without compromising and destroying the box in the process. 

Firstly I decided to do away with the idea of using a Piezo pickup, between the bridge and the underside of the lid there is about ¾ of an inch of this compressed card/sawdust compound and I felt as though the Piezo would suffer a lot of dulling in tone. I’d had a Wilkinson P-90 lying around for a while and, I do love P-90’s so heck, why the hell not right? The box wasn’t in pristine condition, there had been a few small little chips on the two pack finish from the day I picked it up but I knew routing a cavity in the lid would probably tear the majority of the finish off so I went about it it by hand with a dremel and chisel. As the shape of a P-90 isn’t a square corner, it was a bit of a pain getting it 100% accurate but it did work out in the end, mostly… A couple of chips of paint came off in the process and I could live with looking at them so I just fashioned a pickup cover out of some brushed tin I had around for these exact moments. To mount the pickup I ended up gluing a centre block in the body (one of three) and let it set while I got onto the neck. 

This neck is a two piece, a Tasmanian Snakewood neck with a Queensland Maple fretboard, I’ve been using a lot of Snakewood lately and it’s a great timber to use but let’s be honest hah I just like saying “Snakewood”. The fret markers are really lovely Abalone dots and they just pop in the right light against the fretboard, mesmerising. The nut was a throwback to my earlier builds and is a New Guinea Ebony creation, I wanted to use Brass to match the two brass bars under the last fret but, I thought the tone might be a little bright for that. This is another build that is not a through neck, the neck stops short of the pickup on this one so another centre block was added and the neck was clamped in place. 

Back down the other end of the strings the bridge is a slice of Queensland maple with three individual frets installed for each of the strings for intonations sake. I actually really dig the look of this and I think I’ll be using the design more often. The bridge is a string through body design so another centre block was required here for the strings to slip through the back of the body and through the string holes. 

All of these extra bits of timber in the body have certainly made it one of my heaviest builds but when it’s plugged in the sustain is worth it. 

This guitar is currently for sale and shipping worldwide is always possible. If you are interested in owning your very own Black Cat Bone Guitar, just shoot me a message here or stop by the Facebook page through the link on our home page. 

Until next time!

Alex.