2010s Unmarked Baritone Acoustic/Electric Solidbody Classical Guitar Conversion

From time to time, local folks bring-in "storage cleanout" finds for me to buy. This instrument was one of those. It was filthy when it arrived and covered in metal-band-style stickers. It was also setup as an HSS electric with a Strat-style configuration. I left it to sit in storage upstairs until I could figure what to do with it, though I did note that it was shockingly lightweight.

I'd worked on a few "solidbody," plug-in classical guitars lately and wanted to do one up in my own style as most of them are equipped with undersaddle-style pickups, battery-powered preamps, and fixed bridges. I figured I could get a better sound from K&K pickups and some sort of top fit with a small tone chamber. I also had a spare 7-string classical set on hand. I remembered this goofy thing upstairs and immediately thought, "wouldn't it be funny to make a chug-style electric classical?"

So -- I whipped this up! After stripping it of its original parts and cleaning it up a ton, I "routed" the pickup cavity out into a swimming-pool-style chamber and then fit a masonite (Danelectro-style!) top over it. To this I fit an archtop-style adjustable-height bridge (with proper board radius) and drilled holes through the rear for string mounting. I gave it a level/dress of the frets in here at some point.

The rest was just logical stuff -- installing pickup sensors (one K&K "mini" sensor in-between the bridge posts on the underside of the masonite and two K&K "banjo" sensors -- shop salvage -- located in front of each bridge post), wiring it up (5-position switch and passive volume and tone -- though the "tone" only lightly-scoops the treble off and reduces volume a bit so it's more useful as a "second setting" roll-off knob), and setting it up. Pics of the interior are shown below the rest of the images.

The end result was something extremely delightful -- I think all of us got lost playing it a half hour or so after I finished work on it. My friend Aidan (a local guy) is getting this for himself, however. He wandered-in at opening last week after I had finished it only a few hours before and it was one of those "lucky moment" things because an instrument like this is essentially purpose-built for his playing-style and use. It's too funny...

Also, does it do metal? Sure! One needs to use a drive/distortion pedal, though, to keep an amp's proper gain stages from inducing too much feedback if you're playing too close to your amp. It also sounds great with gain, especially with the tone rolled-off a bit. Because of the balanced tension on the low B string, it doesn't have the "sloppy" feel of a typical, low-tuned, electric guitar -- and the low strings, especially, are nice and punchy and "stiff" in their way. If using it just for plugging into a DAW, the feedback issues are zilch for gaining-up.

It's got a 25 1/2" scale and weighs-in a hair under 4 lbs.