'Canned Heat'

The latest creation in my stable of silver serving dish guitars is a four-string electro/acoustic built around an oval-shaped silver-plated little jewel I pickup at a secondhand store.

The neck is walnut with a fingerboard created from three pieces of wood -- maple, cherry and walnut -- hand formed into the pattern you see here.  This is my first attempt at a custom designed fingerboard, but it will not be my last.  

The scarf joint headstock is oval shaped to follow the body design.  

The body of the guitar is the dish with an oval shaped top to conform to the design.  An oak surround with maple top serves to enclose the sound chamber.  

Sound holes are the result of noodling around with a pencil, while watching my Celtics kick hell out of the Hawks, and the design works well with the oval shape of the dish.  The nut and saddle are once again my favorite material - Corian - hand formed in my handy-dandy StewMac vice . . . a great investment. 

The tailpiece is walnut laminated to the oak surround, and it serves as a trough-body string retainer. 

Located just under the string retainer is the output jack for an amp and a strap button to keep the thing from falling on the ground.

The patina on the dish is so cool that I decided that it should not be polished.  I love the way these old silver babies tarnish.