Types of Electric Guitars - Hobbies

Solid body

Solid body electric guitars have no hollow internal cavity to accommodate vibration and no sound holes such as those used to amplify string vibrations in acoustic guitars. Solid body instruments are generally made up of hardwood with a lacquer coating. The wood is dried for 3 to 6 months in heated storage before being cut to shape. The sound that is audible in music featuring electric guitars is produced by pickups on the guitar that convert the string vibrations into an electrical signal. The signal is then fed to an amplifier (or amp) and speaker.

One of the first solid body guitars was invented by Les Paul. Gibson did not present their 'Les Paul' guitar prototypes to the public, as they did not believe it would catch on. The first mass-produced solid-body guitar was Fender's Broadcaster (later to become the 'Telecaster') first made in 1948, five years after Les Paul made his prototype. The Gibson Les Paul appeared soon after to compete with the Broadcaster.[5]

String-through body

When discussing electric guitar construction, the term string-through body is used to describe a type of solid body electric guitar body in which the strings are threaded through holes drilled into the bottom of the guitar body. The strings are typically held in place using metal ferrules screwed or glued into the holes.

The advantages of a string-through body mostly relate to improvements in a guitar's sustain and timbre. It is also by nature impossible to install a tremolo arm and have the string ends anchored through the body. Tremolo systems change string tension by changing the physical length of the string. This requires the end of the string to be anchored to the (tremolo) bridge unit directly, instead of to the wood of the body. [A talented guitar luthier or repair person is certainly capable of installing a tremolo bridge on this type of guitar, however, this is rarely done as it eliminates whatever tonal benefits are provided by the string-through body system and permanently degrades the value and collectability of the original instrument.]

Examples of string-through bodies on guitars include the Fender Telecaster Thinline and Telecaster Deluxe.

Gitarren Bodies