New guitar models added to the microband range

After spending a few days soldering up some of the new PCBs from www.pcbcart.com we fired up the laser cutter to make some enclosures for the new miniature guitars. We're working on a complete range of micro instruments at http://www.microband.co.uk and hope to have at least eight different guitar models.

We've already got

• Stratocaster
• Flying V
• Explorer

And we're hoping to complete the range with

• Les Paul
• Warlock
• Telecaster
• Gibson SG (AC/DC)
• F-hole blues (like BB King's Lucille)

Tonight we managed to design and cut out two of these new guitars:

This is going to be an SG style guitar, for Andy at BandJammer.
While Angus Young from AC/DC usually plays a maroon-coloured SG, Andy's  favoured guitar is a mustard yellow one (at least that's the one he uses in most of his videos and promotional material!). The closest match we could make was a yellow acrylic, but here it is partially assembled. It's a surprise gift, so let's hope he's not reading this blog!

We've some 1.5mm HIPs on order for the scratchplate. We tried making it from thick card, but it didn't look nice (and stank the workshop out with a nasty tarry smell as the laser just burned the paper and filled the cutter with smoke!). Here's the guitar we're basing this one on....

For our Les Paul style guitar, we wanted to try something a bit different to the previous styles. We've got a red Stratocaster, a yellow Explorer, a green Flying V and now another yellow guitar. A blue Les Paul just didn't look right and we don't have any gold coloured acrylic to re-create Slash's famous goldtop.
So who else plays a Les Paul and isn't Slash...?
Zakk Wylde not only plays a Les Paul, but also plays a white one, with a striking bulls-eye black-and-white pattern. Perfect! We've plenty of white acrylic in both 3mm and 5mm!

Unlike previous miniature guitars, we've moved away from the 5mm black acrylic, and decided to make the entire body from the same colour, yet stick with a black fretboard. The end result is actually quite nice.

A few stickers and a bit of finishing off and we shouldn't be too far away from the real thing -