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GALLERY: Guitar Center Eric Clapton Crossroads Collection 2013

Fender Custom Shop Eric Clapton "Brownie" Tribute Strat, Gibson Harrsison-Clapton "Lucy" Les Paul, and a trio of Martin 000 body-style acoustics round out the collection. Photos courtesy Guitar Center.

Guitar Center Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Collection
On February 5, 2013, Guitar Center presented a preview of the Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Collection in the Platinum Room at their Manhattan location on 25 West 14th Street. The collection features five limited edition signature and replica guitars that were developed in partnership with Clapton, Guitar Center, Fender, Gibson, and Martin, and will be sold exclusively at Guitar Center starting March 21, 2013. A large portion of the proceeds from the sale of each guitar will go to Clapton's Crossroads Centre, Antigua which offers treatment for drug and alcohol addiction.

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Reader: Federico Novelli
Hometown: Genoa, Italy
Guitar: The Italian Hybrid

Reader Federico Novelli constructed this hybrid guitar from three layers of pine, courtesy of some old shelves he had laying around.

Through a momentary flash, an amateur Italian luthier envisioned a hybrid design that borrowed elements from his favorite models.

A few years ago, at the beginning of Covid, an idea for a new guitar flashed through my mind. It was a semi-acoustic model with both magnetic and piezo pickups that were mounted on a soundboard that could resonate. It was a nice idea, but I also had to think about how to make it in my tiny cellar without many power tools and using old solid-wood shelves I had available.

I have been playing guitar for 50 years, and I also dabble in luthiery for fun. I have owned a classical guitar, an acoustic guitar, and a Stratocaster, but a jazz guitar was missing from the list. I wanted something that would have more versatility, so the idea of a hybrid semi-acoustic guitar was born.

I started to sketch something on computer-aided design (CAD) software, thinking of a hollowbody design without a center block or sides that needed to be hot-worked with a bending machine. I thought of a construction made of three layers of solid pine wood, individually worked and then glued together in layers, with a single-cutaway body and a glued-in neck.

For the soundboard and back, I used a piece of ash and hand-cut it with a Japanese saw to the proper thickness, so I had two sheets to fit together. Next, I sanded the soundboard and bottom using two striker profiles as sleds and an aluminum box covered in sandpaper to achieve a uniform 3 mm thickness. A huge amount of work, but it didn't cost anything.

“It was a nice idea, but I also had to think about how to make it in my tiny cellar without many electric tools and out of old solid-wood shelves I had available.”

The soundboard has simplified X-bracing, a soundhole with a rosewood edge profile, and an acoustic-style rosewood bridge. For the neck, I used a piece of old furniture with straight grain, shaped it to a Les Paul profile, and added a single-action truss rod. The only new purchase: a cheap Chinese rosewood fretboard.

Then, there was lots of sanding. I worked up to 400-grit, added filler, primer, and transparent nitro varnish, worked the sandpaper up to 1,500-grit, and finally polished.

Our reader and his “Italian job.”

For electronics, I used a Tonerider alnico 2 humbucker pickup and a piezo undersaddle pickup, combined with a modified Shadow preamp that also includes a magnetic pickup input, so you can mix the two sources on a single output. I also installed a bypass switch for power on/off and a direct passive output.

I have to say that I am proud and moderately satisfied both aesthetically and with the sounds it produces, which range from jazz to acoustic and even gypsy jazz. However, I think I will replace the electronics and piezo with Fishman hardware in the future.

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