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Ergonomic Electric Guitar Project
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Here's the end result of my ergonomic
guitar project. I'll explain more about the shape of the body below, but in summary, the two main goals I had for this
guitar were:
1. I wanted to be able to play sitting-down
without my back hurting
2. I wanted the guitar to be in the same position relative to my body when I was playing standing as when I was playing sitting.
There's also a generous arm carve to
help with ergonomics.
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You probably recognize this
ergonomic guitar
is built on the T-stye (aka Telecaster) platform. The
body outline is different, but the bridge, single-coil pickups, control plate, headstock, etc. are all
Telecaster-style. The
guitar has a roasted maple Warmoth neck, stainless
steel frets and
staggered Fender locking tuners. |

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I need to find a better looking
guitar model, but this image shows why the ergonomic guitar body has
the shape it does. There's a ton of good information
online about proper guitar playing posture so I won't go into
that, but in summary I wanted the following for my
ergonomic guitar posture: 1. Sit with
back straight and feet flat on the ground 2. Guitar
weight evenly distributed on right and left legs 3.
Guitar neck at 45 degree angle. This
is pretty much the standard classical guitar posture,
but better. Because the ergonomic electric guitar does
not have the size and
shape constraints of an acoustic guitar; there is no need for
a foot stool, rest, support, etc. |
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I really need to find a more
attractive guitar model, but for now, I will just make
the picture small. Note how the ergonomic guitar is in the same position relative
to my body when I am standing and playing as when I am
sitting. This obviously makes it easier to transition
between the two. |

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My ergonomic guitar project started during covid when I decided to learn to play guitar
with all the time I would have at home. I bought this fancy
Telecaster and started practicing every day. At first I sat in the "folk" position with the guitar on my right leg, but within a few months my back
hurt. |
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It didn't take much research to learn
that a classical guitar posture was superior to the folk
posture, so I switched. Unfortunately,
my fancy blue Telecaster isn't a very ergonomic electric
guitar and it didn't sit on my left leg very
well so I tried a footstool and then a little cushion,
but ultimately I made a rest that worked pretty well. It was made of aluminum, plastic, felt, longer on back, sandpaper on bottom |

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The material added to the bottom of
the body eliminates the need for the rest and the horn on top moves the
attachment point for the strap about two inches forward. Moving
the attachment point forward makes the guitar
better balanced on the strap and prevents neck dive. I
was concerned about neck dive because I was cutting
quite a bit of material off the back of the guitar. Moving
the front strap forward pretty much cancels out the
effect of cutting wood off the back and the
balance of the ergonomic guitar feels like a traditional
T-style guitar. |
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This shows the material cut out of
the back of the body.
Two volume controls (one for each
pickup) with the jack in the control plate. Adjusting
the relative volume of each pickup "blends"
their effects. I may change to a single volume and
4-way switch. The jack is in the control plate so it doesn't get in the way when sitting. The pickups are wired in parallel
and in a humbucking configuration, but the
humbucking isn't fully effective unless both pickups are
set at the exact same volume. The guitar is pretty quiet
even without the humbucking. I was careful to shield
everything and twist the wires from the pickups to the
control cavity. |

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Here's the ergonomic guitar body
showing the cavities lined with copper tape. I was
pretty careful with wiring and shielding since the
guitar uses single-coil pickups. The
outline of the body is different, but the neck pocket, pickup routes, control cavity routes,
etc. are all the same as a traditional Telecaster.. The
body is very heavy and dense Northern Ash, but because
the body has less total wood than a traditional
Telecaster body the weight of the guitar came in at
a reasonable eight pounds. I think the hard dense wood
makes is sound heavier than it is, but that could easily
be listener bias. |
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Here's a high-res scan of the original
sketch of the
ergonomic T-style guitar. I enlarged this sketch and
used it to make the cutout in the back of the ergonomic
guitar body. For the top and bottom "horns" at the
front of the body I literally swapped the top and the
bottom shapes of the standard T-style. The
pick guard is a standard T-style with the horn cut off. |

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I bought a $179 Squier Bullet, modified it and played it a
bunch during my ergonomic guitar journey. After some
setup and fret dressing it played fine, but after about
9 months the fake skunk stripe started pushing into the
back of the neck and I didn't think it was worth it (or
even possible) to fix the back of the neck. The bridge,
rear pickup, neck plate and ferrules from the Squier
Bullet went into the ergonomic electric guitar.
I'd be happy to supply more
detail if you want to build something similar to this
guitar.
Email me at rich.hooper@gmail.com
for more information. You can also let me know if f you
know of an example ergonomic electric guitar you
would like me to highlight below. |
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