FINAL BUILDS

Corey

Straya

2 of 3 finished, I’ll post 2 of each when they are done

Discovering6strings

Chorley UK

Hi all here is my submission for the cup it’s a hetfeild inspired explorer with a custom headstock design I made the templates myself and worked from there, the wood used was a old bay window that was removed from a job at work as is the oak cap which was a newal post This is my first ever build from scratch so has been a massive learning experience and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of doing this from matching the wood for the blank to shaping the neck then obviously playing the finished piece, what a experience it has been I hope you all like the finished guitar as much as I do, and just want to say a big thanks to all those who have helped along the way and followed the build on my YouTube channel

Gspot guitars

Musselburgh Scotland

As I don’t have the facilities to make necks and bodies from scratch I’ve been buying bodies and necks and putting them together by hand. This is definitely the best guitar I’ve made this year and such a pleasure to build

guitarsjpcustom

Peterlee County Durham Uk

Introducing “I AM NOBODY” my Paul Weller/The Jam inspired homage to the Rickenbacker 330, a model that Weller used extensively during his early career, and gave typically sharp, aggressive tone to his music. My build isn’t a replica, but rather an homage to those guitars, and as anyone familiar with the 330 would instantly point out there are numerous variations, as my version needed to reflect my feel for the original, but be a unique piece. The specification is as follows: my wood choices are ash with sapele centre stripe and laminated flamed maple and sapele neck with walnut fretboard, mother of pearl binding, vintage looking shell block inlays, hand made bone nut and 24 stainless steel medium jumbo frets. The tuners are guyker locking units, and the bridge is guyker, but I fabricated a custom aluminium hand rest and a set of custom saddles. Pick ups are roswell toaster humbuckers, and the tail piece is trapezoidal, I also made the double pick guard and truss rod cover, which is signed “I AM NOBODY “ which references the same phrase scratched into the front of one of Wellers rickenbacker guitars. Vintage knobs and a handmade jack plate and Ernie ball slinky’s complete the job. I used a mixture of blue and black crimson stains and a blend of polyurethane boiled linseed oil and white spirit as a wiping varnish, which gave the guitar a nice satin vintage look.

Huysmans Guitars

Germany

My inspiration to build this guitar is simple. I wanted a green offset guitar. The hero part played a small part in this. Guitar players like Jim Root and Kurt Cobain also played offset guitars. In the end I decided to get a jazzmaster going, strafing away from the original as far as I could, to avoid a cease and desist letter. The guitar is made of black limba with an ash top. The neck is flamed maple with a black limba fretboard. I originally wanted to make a laminated neck, but after I ruined 3 of them getting the scarf joint in, warping or router template slipping, I gave up. I also wanted a p90 and a humbucker setup. Went for more quality parts from Gotoh, Seymour Duncan, Pure tone and Guitar Monkey. I’m most proud of the road I’ve walked to get to this build tbh. There’s been tons of improvement and I think it turned out a stunner. I’m still not ready in my opinion, to make instruments for others. Although I managed to fix many of the mistakes made, there’s details that pull down the level of quality I want to deliver. Especially the issues with the neck pocket gave me a headache. All in all I found joining the jurgs cup and the community one of the best decisions this year. It’s been a blast and I’m looking forward to all other builds as well. Cheers Jonathan aka Huysmans Guitars

JaredGoertzen

Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada

After starting my guitar building journey with a basic T-style guitar kit five year ago, I advanced to building a couple more guitars from kits but making a few minor modifications along the way (like turning a kit build into a baritone guitar). But when the idea of building a guitar using wood from my 100+ year old family farm entered my brain, I knew that I wanted this guitar to be special. When I asked my parents last summer (2025) as they were heading out to the farm to grab me some barn wood, I was not exactly sure what they were going to acquire. Obviously some nice, 100 plus year old hardwood free of pests that could be made into body blanks would have been the most ideal, but instead my parents brought back a number of wide boards that were used as the trim around the windows. This gave the boards a lot more character with the paint and nail holes, but forced me to think more about how I was going to incorporate the wood into a guitar. I decided to start this project from a Les Paul Jr kit from Solo Music Gear here in Canada. I had to flatten the back of the barn boards so that when they got glued up to the body it would be a flat surface. I then did a roundover which gave it a faux-binding look (happy accident!) The pickguard and back cavity cover is from an old 1954 Saskatchewan license plate when the family farm was in full operation. For the headstock I learned how to do inlay and did a mother of pearl inlay based on the cattle brand my great-grandfather used on his cattle. I bought the little jeweler saw and some 1″ by 1″ blanks of mother of pearl from Mr. Bezos. Trial and error was so vital here again. I am really proud of this build. I am proud of what it represents. I am proud that when I encountered problems through this build that I saw them as opportunities to learn something new and not something to get aggravated over. I am proud to be a maker and not a taker.

Lee

Kent uk

I haven’t really thought of a name to give this build, but….. but had a blast doing it for such a great cause. Learnt some new skills. Seen some amazing builds! Actually as this is my second build… the name i think should be… “The second coming!”. With Gyker locking tuners and Walman humbuckers and blood sweat and tears!! This is my JC4 entry. “The second coming”..

Mick Carr.

Worcester UK

This one's inspired very loosely on one of my heroes, Peter Green. Its a fully hollow meranti body with double binding, a flame maple top and bound maple neck. Its also got epiphone probucker pickups which I really like.

North East Guitars

Scottsdale, Tasmania, Australia

This guitar is one of my finest...if not the finest I've built. Almost everything has worked out as good or better than I had anticipated. I will be rafilling off this guitar and donating all of the profit to the Leukaemia foundation in the name of Jurgen Zoller. I think it is the right thing to do. I've built 17 guitars so far. This is build #18/19 depending on which I finish first. I'm sure proud of the neck and the semi-hollow body. Admittedly....I'm an idiot. I built this after watching older videos of the Jurg's Cup, thinking the theme was about a hollow/semi-hollow theme. Therefore, this guitar fits the theme of the 2025 Jurg's Cup....and has very little to do with the 2026 theme of "Hero" build. If that were the case I'd be building a left handed Strat (I'm sure you can guess the hero). In this case I suppose my hero would be (as corny as this sounds) Paul Richards of Milehouse Studios. He is the main reason I had the confidence to begin guitar making. I'm sincerely not making this stuff up. In July, 2025, I decided to make a guitar after watching a bunch of his videos. Since then, I have completed 17 electric guitars. I wish I started making them 30 years ago. I hope to sell them and make a new life for myself. One day maybe. Thanks for the support and encouragement. This community is filled with positivity and I'm proud to be a part of it.

NSJGuitars

Scottish Highlands

My entry is based on the ibanez JS2450 Joe satriani guitar. Poplar body, maple neck with ebony accent and ebony fretboard with spokewheel trussrod. Gotoh hardware. Warman pickups. Bridge is the zebra with an A5 magnet and neck is the peacemaker. Painted with Kustom canz orange candy and 2k clear coat finish. Sound demo can be heard on my youtube channel at NSJGuitars

Oakley Custom Guitars

Willenhall, England

Inspiration - I always loved (but could never afford) the signature instruments of my Heroes: Brian May, Edward Van Halen, Steve Lukather, Mark Knopfler and Nuno Bettencourt. They were more than signature 'tweeks' of a stock model, they were designed with them, for them. So my submission is a "if I were a Hero" - what would I want from a signature guitar- playability, ergonomics, subtle orginal lines, in short, something I'd put my name to, Materials - I worked to a budget and went with a simple colour contrast. I picked Padauk and Maple, I think they look great together, Padauk ages beautifully from orage/red to deep red/brown, and the maple will get deeper in colour with use. I like oiled finished to let the wood resonate, and adds character with age. It also makes it tactile when playing the guitar. What changed- the main alteration was to reduce the body width by 1/2, bringing it to 12 1/2", to fit a newly acquired thickness plainer. This adjusted the over all outline slightly, but made it lighter in weight. I also added more prominent body contours than originally intended, it added comfort and a cool aesthetic, with a nod towards one of my guitar brand Hero's PRS.

pete custom!

Halifax Canada

"Buccaneer". Maple/sappel body and neck. Maple/pau ferro fretboard. Gotoh hardware. I wanted to do an explorer style with a twist. It plays pretty nicely and I've already gigged with it.

Rob Nash

Sydney Australia

Hi all, this is my firat ever Jurgs entry... and my second ever guitar build! I built thia one for my brother for his 40th birthday. Its a straight grain Maple back and curly maple top, I stained the back red and the top I went for a vintage look burst, (first time using any dye at all too, No pressure!!) I also tried my hand at faux binding using Tung Oil to accentuate the grain. hardware wise I went with a Wilkinson Brodge with compensated saddles, Gotoh tuners and Fender Tex Mex, Hot tele Pickups, the neck is curly Maple with Indian rosewood fretboard, with abalone inlays and side dots. I then put some Ernie Ball 10's on and the frets are Fender Medium Jumbo. Judging by the look on my brother's face he liked it! Im stoked to have found lutheiry as a passtime after being medically discharged from the police force.. its literally saved my life. Its a big step forward for my building journey hVing built my first one out of Tomato Stakes I had in the garden!

Rob T

South East England

I used Eddie Van Halen's '78 Eruption' guitar for inspiration on this one. The body is black limba and a (very) loose Jaguar template (to be a little different). Although a nod to the Eruption guitar, I wanted to keep the wood visible and then the black stripes cut through it using routed lines filled with epoxy containing black mica powder with a dash of gold to give a metallic glint when the light catches it. A maple neck with a wenge fretboard, spoke wheel truss rod and stainless frets. As a beginner/hobby builder I like to use affordable (but decent) hardware where possible and so have a Wilkinson tuners / 2 point trem and Warman "Lil' Hot Devil" humbuckers. This is my first build using a roller nut, which works great, although will probably stick to bone in the future for ease. Overall pretty pleased with the result and this competition has been a great motivation to put a little extra thought into the design and build of the guitar.

Siltanen Guitars

Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, Canada

The Siltanen Guitars '65 Superbird. This is my take on a 1965 Firebird. As Gibson transitioned the Firebird from the reverse body style to the non-reverse there was mixing of features on some guitars.... I love the reverse Firebird body style with the Banjo tuners, but thought P90's would be a nice change from the stock Firebird pickups (which are a nightmare to make !). So this Superbird combines the features of the earlier Firebirds, with the P90's of the non-reverse guitars that came later. It features true neck-though construction, the centre section is a 9 piece Mahogany and Walnut laminate, the wings are Honduran mahogany. The pickups are a set of my hand-wound Vostok P90s. The bridge P90 is a special Alnico 6 magnet variant of the Vostok 3 model, and the neck is a classic Vostok 2 using Alnico 5 magnets. This gives a nice balance of bridge pickup with a bit more midrange punch than a stock P90, and a very smooth and open neck pickup. They match very well together in this guitar. The tuners are true Kluson Firebird Banjo tuners, with Ivory buttons. The fretboard is Rosewood, and the frets are Stewmac Cryowire 152. The neck profile is slightly thicker than our usual medium C-D, measuring 0.87" at the first fret and 0.92" at the twelfth fret. Its finished in a classic Tobacco Sunburst with a satin sheen. This guitar was showcased at our booth during the 2026 Great American Guitar Build-Off, and now resides with an incredibly accomplished player and collector in Belgium. These guitars a a challenge to make, all the normal build processes have to be reconfigured to accommodate the 4ft chunk of lumber that slowly turns into the centre section of the instrument. However, once they are finished, they are one of the most striking guitars you can strap on ! Thanks to all, its an honour to be able to participate !!! Cheers !

Stephen Henderson

London, UK

A cabronita-esque take on a Strat. This is the first time I've tried a full body+neck build at home, and despite having to throw away two failed neck attempts I'm really happy how it turned out. All done with hand tools - no bandsaw or pillar drill. Specs: • White limba body, orange wood stain with Northwest Guitars "Water based top coat" wipe-on finish for the body. • Maple neck, ebony 'board (pre-slotted) with a mystery-wood veneer on the headstock (from a cheap bag of random offcuts I got ages ago) - oil finish (Crimson "penetrating" oil). • Soap-bar sized filtertron pickups (TV Jones classic in the neck and a Mojo "Mojotron" in the bridge) • ABM 3250 fixed bridge

SUTOR Guitars

Dongen Nederland

My acoustic SG2000 build because I I am a big fan of SANTANA. you can see the build video's on YouTube and the photo's on Facebook ( SUTOR guitars) it is full acoustic , one piezo, one pick-up. And volume & tone

Yarde Guitars

Saltash, Cornwall

This is an extended range 8 string headless guitar inspired by ‘IV’ from Sleep Token. The body is a 2 piece ash, neck an African Wenge and an inlaid Zebrano fretboard. The pickup is all custom fabricated, only the coil wire and pole screws have been bought ‘off the shelf’. Using a custom pole spacing and angle to capture the complimentary speaking points on the 28”-26.5” scale length Another feature is that the design was to be all ‘low profile’ keeping the hardware as minimal and least protruding as possible. This starts with the Riviera Hardware bridge, the matching radius pickup cover, a custom roller volume control, then a kill button and split coil button to maintain a sleek profile.