Essence of Firebird - the Swiftfire!

Andyjr1515 · July 2023

I've just finished a build for my son-in-law, Alex. He plays a number of different guitars but, to date, his go-to was always his Epiphone Firebird, bought when they were still fitting the splendid Steinberger gearless tuners. Great guitar...but includes many of the downsides of the iconic original - not least, the behaviour on the strap.

So I offered to build him an 'essence of'. It was planned to prioritise his particular playing preferences over the actual shape and layout of the original.

Things he wanted:
- good strap and knee balance
- split-able humbuckers
- steinberger gearless tuners
- access to 18th fret max
- a shorter neck reach
- medium weight...he was not especially after a lightweight

Beyond that, he gave me complete freedom to add stuff that took my fancy.

I'm more than happy to add some details of the build itself and I add the spec below the pics - but if there are any specific questions, just shout...I'm more than happy to clarify what I did and why. In the meantime, cutting to the chase, here is the final result:

Spec-wise:
- 25" scale (yes, I know) with the whole scale shifted back an inch or so to improve the reach and the balance. To retain at least some upper fret access, this meant losing some of the reverse offset. Alex was happy with that. Even so, this would not suit a player who likes to explore the dusty end

- Alder back; figured ebony top; ebony fretboard; maple/ebony laminated through-neck

-12" fretboard radius

- Alder body and neck using @WezV ; 's excellent Tru-oil slurry-and-buff method; ebony top brought to polish by sanding progressively from 180 grit to 12000 micro-mesh.

- Seymour Duncan P-rails, independently splittable to the P90 coil with CTS push pull

- EVO Gold fretwire

- Steinberger Gearless tuners

- 8lb 2oz playing weight

I passed it over to Alex on Friday - happily, he's very pleased with it. Phew!

As always, thanks for looking

Winny_Pooh · July 2023

Beautiful build!

thermionic · July 2023

Superb. “Modern” guitars that deviate from the 50s/60s Californian blueprint rarely excite me but that combination of woods and how it’s put together is very pleasing.

PhilKing · July 2023

Looks really nice Andy. Is the neck pickup in a sweet spot, as it is a little closer to the bridge pickup than usual? I have an LP Special double cut that @WezV made me, with bridge and middle pickups (also helps keep the neck joint stable). On that I used to different BK pickups to help differentiate the sound.

Roland · July 2023

Outstanding piece of work. The amount of sanding needed makes me feel feint.

Andyjr1515 · July 2023

Thanks, folks

Andyjr1515 · July 2023

PhilKing said:

Looks really nice Andy. Is the neck pickup in a sweet spot, as it is a little closer to the bridge pickup than usual?

It works well. The P-rails are pretty full anyway and so there's no shortage of bass in the neck position in any case. Quite how much difference it would make moving it proportionately (as it's a longer scale anyway) to the Gibson/Epiphone positions, I'm not sure.

It was also definitely the right thing to make the 'P90' coils individually splittable rather than the 4-option arrangement that SD suggest with the same push-pulls (that is, giving series humbucker; parallel humbucker; P90's only; rails only) In practice on my own guitars using the SD suggestion, I found that I never used the 'humbucker parallel' or the 'rails only' but did find it restricting to have both pickups always having the same configuration as each other. Alex agrees that the arrangement I've put in gives him all of the options he would normally need. That said, it would only be a 20 minute job to wire it up the other way so, if he wants to try it out, that would be no problem.

paulnb57 · July 2023

Cripes Andy! Thats fabulous!

Andyjr1515 · July 2023

Thanks for the kind comments, folks - always greatly appreciated.

impmann · July 2023

Another beauty, Andy. :-)

Andyjr1515 · July 2023

impmann said:

Another beauty, Andy. :-)

Thanks, Tim

HilditchGuitars · July 2023

I've been meaning to compliment you on this for about 3 days now but my mind is like a sieve sometimes. Looks great!

Andyjr1515 · July 2023

HilditchGuitars said:

I've been meaning to compliment you on this for about 3 days now but my mind is like a sieve sometimes. Looks great!

Many thanks

BigMonka · July 2023

That's such a beautiful organic guitar design Andy! It's almost like you've added strings to something you found growing in the woods, stunning.

Andyjr1515 · July 2023

BigMonka said:

That's such a beautiful organic guitar design Andy! It's almost like you've added strings to something you found growing in the woods, stunning.

That's very nice of you to say @BigMonka - means a lot

JMP220478 · July 2023

you must really like your son in law - that's outstanding !!

Andyjr1515 · July 2023

JMP220478 said:

you must really like your son in law - that's outstanding !!

He's a jolly fine chap

And thanks!

LastMantra · July 2023

I don't usually like Firebirds but I like that!

Andyjr1515 · July 2023

LastMantra said:

I don't usually like Firebirds but I like that!

Howdy, Stranger!

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Essence of Firebird - the Swiftfire!

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