A quick rundown of my new guitar, the McFeely 440. With nice pictures by Jaxn Slim and iPhone pictures by me 
My new guitar is collaboration with Mark McFeely, who is just getting rolling as a custom guitar builder. “Collaboration” is perhaps a poor description of the process. I gave Mark a wish list of stuff that I wanted (some of which I’ve never seen done before) and he made it happen.
About a year ago Mark purchased a CNC machine with the intention of making some guitar parts and building some guitars. I had just gotten a slab of walnut that I was thinking of trying my own guitar build with just for fun. I’ve assembled instruments from parts before but actually doing some woodworking sounded like fun. Mark offered to cut a body from the material for my since he was just getting to know his new machine. One thing led to another and we just decided to make a whole instrument and I could be his first “client”.
I figured that since Mark wanted to do an offset strat-style guitar I could have him build an instrument that could cover the same ground sonically as my Suhr strat (which I use for the bulk of my paying gigs) but the one thing that guitar can not do is give me a decent jazz or neck humbucker sound. About that time I ran across a video of Guthrie Govan demonstrating his new (at the time) Suhr signature model. He starts about 3:35:
The thing that stuck with me was where he demonstrates how his guitar can still get a decent neck humbucker sound with 24 frets - conventional wisdom saying that the pickup is out of place since you don’t have the first coil under the 24[SUP]th[/SUP] fret row of harmonics. In the video he makes it sound pretty good. I figured that if I had a single coil strat pickup in the right place (24[SUP]th[/SUP] fret) that a humbucker stuck between the middle and neck pickups might just be in the same place as Guthries neck pickup. And that is where the 4 pickup concept came from. At one point we were discussing having the humbuckers on one set of volume and tone controls and the single coils on another with a master volume. There would be three regular pots and two thumbwheels to cover all of that like a Fender Jaguar. Other ideas included a blower switch and a switchable treble bleed but at the end of the day things were complicated enough. This is how the 5 way switch lays out:
1 – bridge humbucker
2 – strat middle and bridge humbucker split
3- “neck” humbucker
4 – strat neck and middle pickups
5 – strat neck pickup
The first knob is the volume for the guitar, middle is tone for the bridge humbucker and the last knob is tone for the neck pickup. If we can figure out how to make one of the tone controls for the “neck humbucker” I’d like to try that in the future. Without the tone control the extra humbucker doesn't sound exactly how I hoped but it does sound cool
Pickups:
Bridge – Suhr SSV Humbucker. I have the DSV in my Suhr classic and I wanted to give this a spin. It might be a bit brighter than I want. If I change it it will be to the DSV version which is a little warmer sounding.
Neck Humbucker – Suhr DSV
Single coils are both Suhr ML strat pickups. I have the Suhr v60lp pickups in my Suhr classic and if these are a little too modern sounding for me I might trade them out for the v60lps.
Hardware:
Bridge and Tuners are both Gotoh and the input jack is an Electrosocket. I’ve had good experience with them in the past. When I was ordering parts both items as they had been on my Suhr Classic had been discontinued so I tried the 6 screw bridge with the big block and what I thought were adjustable height Kluson-style tuners but ended up being locking Kluson-style tuners. A Tremelo-No allows me to lock the bridge if I don’t want it to float.
Body: - one piece Alder
The color is a paint color that was popular 1972 Dodge Charger. My friend (and bassist) Martin Torres is a Charger fan and one of his cars is the B5 Metallicized Blue color. I suck at picking colors but I knew that I liked that one. From that came the concept of the “440”. The 440 was the largest engine that was available in the early 1970’s “Third Generation” Chargers like my buddy owns. I loved the idea that this guitar had something of a “factory hotrod” vibe. The paint color, the upgraded versions of vintage hardware, the offset body and the ridiculous amount of pickups the idea of naming it the “440” made a lot of sense to me. The last week before NAMM he etched the 440 in the pickguard to complete the concept.
Neck - quartersawn maple with a rosewood fretboard.
The radius is a compound 12”-14” with medium/jumbo frets, mother of pearl inlays and a bone nut. Mark has also hidden the fret tangs not only to give the neck a smooth look but it feels great too. The back of the neck is finished in Tru oil and feels much like my Suhr, which started life as a Satin finish and has been buffed slightly glossy through 11 years of use. I dig it!
I'll do a video once my hand heals up.
My new guitar is collaboration with Mark McFeely, who is just getting rolling as a custom guitar builder. “Collaboration” is perhaps a poor description of the process. I gave Mark a wish list of stuff that I wanted (some of which I’ve never seen done before) and he made it happen.
About a year ago Mark purchased a CNC machine with the intention of making some guitar parts and building some guitars. I had just gotten a slab of walnut that I was thinking of trying my own guitar build with just for fun. I’ve assembled instruments from parts before but actually doing some woodworking sounded like fun. Mark offered to cut a body from the material for my since he was just getting to know his new machine. One thing led to another and we just decided to make a whole instrument and I could be his first “client”.
I figured that since Mark wanted to do an offset strat-style guitar I could have him build an instrument that could cover the same ground sonically as my Suhr strat (which I use for the bulk of my paying gigs) but the one thing that guitar can not do is give me a decent jazz or neck humbucker sound. About that time I ran across a video of Guthrie Govan demonstrating his new (at the time) Suhr signature model. He starts about 3:35:
The thing that stuck with me was where he demonstrates how his guitar can still get a decent neck humbucker sound with 24 frets - conventional wisdom saying that the pickup is out of place since you don’t have the first coil under the 24[SUP]th[/SUP] fret row of harmonics. In the video he makes it sound pretty good. I figured that if I had a single coil strat pickup in the right place (24[SUP]th[/SUP] fret) that a humbucker stuck between the middle and neck pickups might just be in the same place as Guthries neck pickup. And that is where the 4 pickup concept came from. At one point we were discussing having the humbuckers on one set of volume and tone controls and the single coils on another with a master volume. There would be three regular pots and two thumbwheels to cover all of that like a Fender Jaguar. Other ideas included a blower switch and a switchable treble bleed but at the end of the day things were complicated enough. This is how the 5 way switch lays out:
1 – bridge humbucker
2 – strat middle and bridge humbucker split
3- “neck” humbucker
4 – strat neck and middle pickups
5 – strat neck pickup
The first knob is the volume for the guitar, middle is tone for the bridge humbucker and the last knob is tone for the neck pickup. If we can figure out how to make one of the tone controls for the “neck humbucker” I’d like to try that in the future. Without the tone control the extra humbucker doesn't sound exactly how I hoped but it does sound cool
Pickups:
Bridge – Suhr SSV Humbucker. I have the DSV in my Suhr classic and I wanted to give this a spin. It might be a bit brighter than I want. If I change it it will be to the DSV version which is a little warmer sounding.
Neck Humbucker – Suhr DSV
Single coils are both Suhr ML strat pickups. I have the Suhr v60lp pickups in my Suhr classic and if these are a little too modern sounding for me I might trade them out for the v60lps.
Hardware:
Bridge and Tuners are both Gotoh and the input jack is an Electrosocket. I’ve had good experience with them in the past. When I was ordering parts both items as they had been on my Suhr Classic had been discontinued so I tried the 6 screw bridge with the big block and what I thought were adjustable height Kluson-style tuners but ended up being locking Kluson-style tuners. A Tremelo-No allows me to lock the bridge if I don’t want it to float.
Body: - one piece Alder
The color is a paint color that was popular 1972 Dodge Charger. My friend (and bassist) Martin Torres is a Charger fan and one of his cars is the B5 Metallicized Blue color. I suck at picking colors but I knew that I liked that one. From that came the concept of the “440”. The 440 was the largest engine that was available in the early 1970’s “Third Generation” Chargers like my buddy owns. I loved the idea that this guitar had something of a “factory hotrod” vibe. The paint color, the upgraded versions of vintage hardware, the offset body and the ridiculous amount of pickups the idea of naming it the “440” made a lot of sense to me. The last week before NAMM he etched the 440 in the pickguard to complete the concept.
Neck - quartersawn maple with a rosewood fretboard.
The radius is a compound 12”-14” with medium/jumbo frets, mother of pearl inlays and a bone nut. Mark has also hidden the fret tangs not only to give the neck a smooth look but it feels great too. The back of the neck is finished in Tru oil and feels much like my Suhr, which started life as a Satin finish and has been buffed slightly glossy through 11 years of use. I dig it!
I'll do a video once my hand heals up.
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