Sean Richards, Bespoke Electric Guitar and Stand (Student Awards 2019)

For my year 12 major work (completed on the 15th August 2019), I decided to combine my passions for woodworking and playing the guitar by designing and building a custom electric guitar. The design was specified to suit my own preferences and playing style with the dimensions, the timber used and the style. The guitar has a mahogany body with a figured Tasmanian oak cap and Indian rosewood inlays. The neck is American rock maple with a rosewood fretboard. The guitar is approximately 970mm in length, 320mm in width and 40mm in thickness. The process of making the guitar involved template routing the body, recessing the cap into the body and hand carving the neck and fretboard. To accompany this, I built a stand that suspends the instrument in mid-air. This featured a steam bent stem supported by a book matched base, which balanced elegance and structural integrity. The stand was constructed with Australian blackwood and American rock maple offcuts with the approximate dimensions 1130mm x 440mm x 240mm. This simplistic design involved steambending, bookmatching and creating strong, complex joinery. All photographs were taken by myself or Matthew Richards (father). Year 12, Engadine High School. Teachers: Lloyd Bowen, Jacob Edmunds

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.