building a skateboard guitar
The idea for this guitar came about because I needed an instrument to play live that was lightweight and that I would not mind damaging. Most of the bands I play in can be quite violent on stage, involving a lot of wrestling, crowd interaction, and throwing my guitar around. I needed something that would sound raw and aggressive while also being resilient enough to withstand this treatment without me having to worry too much about breaking it.
For this project, I collaborated with my dad, who has experience building multiple guitars. The build started with an old longboard that I no longer used, as it was worn down and close to breaking.
We first cut off the nose of the longboard to create a flat surface and enough space for the neck to slot into. The board itself was the perfect size for achieving the correct intonation and provided enough distance between the bridge and the neck.
The neck was salvaged from an old children’s guitar—one of the inexpensive models with a built-in speaker. I also reused the pickups from the same guitar. I did not mind the low quality of the pickups because I was aiming for a high-gain, lo-fi tone. The guitar uses two of these pickups positioned less than a centimetre away from the strings, which resulted in a very high output level and an aggressive sound.
Because the skateboard deck was not thick enough to conceal the electronics, we attached a flat sheet of wood to the back to house the wiring. To hide and protect the electronics, we used old mint tins and chocolate tins as enclosures mounted to the rear of the guitar.
For the strings, I used multiple D strings because the tuning I use for this band is known as Ostrich Tuning. Ostrich Tuning is a tuning method in which all, or the majority, of the strings are tuned to the same note. My tuning for this guitar is:
- G
- D
- D
- D
- D
- D
This tuning creates a powerful drone effect and suits the aggressive, raw style of music that the instrument was designed for.
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