HEAD TO HEAD

After reading the ‘Off With Its Head’ question in the Q&A pages of Guitarist 447, I would like to add that building your own headless guitar is an option. I managed to build one in 2010 at the workshops organised by Thomas Stratmann (his real name!) in Hannover, Germany. Over the course of two weeks, participants built their own designs under his guidance. This guitar was my second one with Thomas and last year I did my sixth; guitar building can be very addictive!

The headless [pictured below right] has a one-piece Scottish maple body with a walnut neck and a rosewood fingerboard. Hardware is from ABM and the pickups were hand-wound by me during the workshop. Meanwhile, the aluminium horn was done by a metalworking friend of mine. Paul Conrad, via email Hats off (or perhaps heads off) to you for your creation, Paul – a really fine-looking and original design, especially given that you wound the pickups yourself. We especially like the aluminium horn, which adds just a touch of Trussart-style metallic mojo to proceedings. It seems like headless guitars are making a little bit of a comeback, with makers such as Strandberg leading the way, complete with fan frets and a unique, forward-thinking neck profile. We have to admit to a certain affection for headless electrics here at Guitarist, partly inspired by prog legend Steve Hillage who forsook his Gong-era 60s Stratocaster for a Steinberger many years ago – and has never looked back. When Hillage embarked on a tour of some of his best-loved back catalogue material recently, we half wondered if he might break out a Strat for old times’ sake. Such nostalgia is not really his style, however, and a recent attendee at one of the shows reported that the Steinberger remains his main squeeze. How’s that for defying the ‘vintage is best’ trend? So your new creation is in pretty good company and, since you’ll certainly need something to tune it with, we are delighted to award you our Star Letter prize of a Korg tuner.