Reader: Jonathan C. Berndt
Hometown: New Kent County, Virginia
Guitar: Old Yeller
I am named after my mother’s father, Jonathan Schairer, who was a luthier/repairman in the Boston area in the late 1800s. He passed away when my mother was a little girl, but somehow, I inherited his skills. I would take the violin he built out of its case as a little kid and just marvel at it. I was always asking Mom how and when he made it, and too many other questions she couldn’t answer.
In 1984, when I was 23, I borrowed Jeff Tyrell’s ’76 Stratocaster. Jeff was a local fixture around the Attleboro, Massachusetts, and Providence music scene from the 1970s through the 2000s. I took his guitar apart (without his permission, mind you), measured everything with calipers, drew plans, made templates, and started my own. A local shop provided a poplar blank glued up from nine laminations! I bought a plain maple board and carved a 1-piece neck from it. I had intended it to be a replica of a ’50s-era Strat, but at that point, I only knew what they looked like from photos. The neck was my interpretation of what I thought a V-profile neck felt like, and the body, of course, had the weak contours of Jeff’s CBS-era Strat. It was built on a Stanley Workmate. My tools: clamps, chisels, a router, a violin knife, my dad’s machinist square. I had access to a drill press and a three-wheeled bandsaw, on which I broke three blades while cutting out the body!
“I was always asking Mom how and when he made it, and too many other questions she couldn’t answer.”
Along the way, the guts of a DOD overdrive made it inside this S-style.
Another local legend, Glen Markel, who repaired guitars for touring acts passing through, applied the nitro for me. I would hang with Glen in his shop and ply him with a thousand questions, take notes, return home, and then apply what I absorbed. I can’t thank him enough. I also read everything I could find on guitar repair and construction as a young man.
Since then, I’ve modified the guitar countless times. I swapped the original Fender trem out for a Kahler, then a Floyd Rose; the DiMarzio pickups for EMGs, then finally Texas Specials. I even took the innards from a DOD overdrive and installed them under the pickguard. The ’80s were not kind.
The JSB Strat in action.
We now live in Virginia and, at 62 years of age, I have made more than 20 guitars. Just prior to moving here, I dropped in to say so long to Jeff in New England. He had sold the very Strat that I took apart to build mine, despite my repeatedly asking him to call me if he decided to sell it. Ironically, a week later I saw it at the local Guitar Center on the wall and bought it on the spot. Jeff passed away about two years later, and I have since foolishly sold his Strat that started this crazy journey. But whenever I pull mine from its case, it feels like coming home.
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Reader: Cary “Spud” Cummings
Hometown: Seattle, Washington
Guitar: Kosmocaster
Like a rock … or, at least, on one!
I decided to build a guitar I call the “Kosmocaster” to celebrate and honor my beloved labrador retriever, Kosmo. In its design, I tried to reflect his constant, ridiculously sunny disposition. He is 100-plus pounds of unwavering love, and we are at our happiest when we are together. I know many of you cherish your dogs as much as I do.
I began by ordering a Warmoth hybrid T-style body made of swamp ash, and a Warmoth maple 24 3/4″-scale conversion-neck ’59 carve with 6115 stainless-steel frets and a CBS-style headstock.
I stained the body a dark brown and took a wire brush to it to open up the grain, then applied metallic-wax finishing paste in colors of blue, green, and silver to highlight the grain and make it colorful. Next was 20-plus thin coats of wipe-on polyurethane. I then finished the headstock the same way, though maple is much tougher to do. I ordered a labrador retriever decal for the headstock, finished over that, and sent Doug Shepard of Doug’s Custom Neck Plates a picture of Kosmo. He etched a line drawing of him onto a gold plate. Doug created a fantastic likeness!
I wired the guitar up with 22AWG pushback cloth wiring, and set it up with CTS 250k pots, a Switchcraft 5-way switch, a Switchcraft jack, Seymour Duncan lipstick Strat pickups (a neck position in the neck and bridge model for the middle), and a Gibson ’57 Classic pickup at the bridge. I completed it with an anodized-aluminum gold pickguard, a Fender American Standard hardtail bridge (I swapped in brass-block saddles), alloy knobs with a silver-switch tip, and Fender/Schaller staggered post-locking tuners to round out the hardware.The guitar plays like Kosmo’s silky coat and sounds like Kosmo’s deepest growl. Kosmo sorta likes it, but really prefers his old rubber ball. This guitar will be there for me when one day Kosmo cannot. I hope everyone will give their dog a great big hug today—they all deserve one!
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I haven't been active in the music field since the mid 1990s. It's very hard to work as a builder or repair tech alone with no reputation. I build guitars now as a form of therapy. I don't really think about what I'm going to do with them when they're finished.
This is the latest guitar I've built. I call it Blue Hawaii, and it's actually the second of a set of three guitars. The third one is still in my head.
Blue Hawaii is a tribute to 1960s import guitars with a nod to the surf scene. The pickups are my own version of the old Danelectro lipstick tubes but without the tubes. I used 42-gauge wire wrapped directly onto alnico 6 bar magnets. The metal interferes with the magnetic field, so I leave them open. These pickups are handwound, as in bobbin in left hand and wire in the right hand. They have a very tight and snappy kind of sound, not much low end—think Fender with a bit of Rickenbacker mixed in. I made a set of these for my 12-string, too.
Each pickup has a volume, tone, and on/off switch with a master volume as well. The pickup covers are white PVC, the bridge is a salvage, the tuners are Gotoh, and the neck is a Chinese import. The guitar's body is a solid slab of poplar. The finish is nine coats of Rust-Oleum Lagoon. That's it, no clear coat. This guitar took about three months from start to finish, including finish-drying time.
I don't use many power tools, mostly because I can't afford the good ones. I just have a cordless drill, belt sander, jigsaw, and palm sander. I source most of my parts through Amazon. What I can't find, I make.
I've always loved the '60s and early-'70s imports and this series is my take on the various makers. The surf vibe of this guitar is because that's what those guitars were primarily used for. I decided on a set of three guitars like this, in primary colors. First is red, then blue, and finally yellow. The yellow guitar is still in R & D.
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