Reader Guitar of the Month: Kosmocaster

I decided to build a guitar I call the “Kosmocaster” to celebrate and honor my beloved labrador retriever, Kosmo. In its design, I tried to reflect his constant, ridiculously sunny disposition. He is 100-plus pounds of unwavering love, and we are at our happiest when we are together. I know many of you cherish your dogs as much as I do.

I began by ordering a Warmoth hybrid T-style body made of swamp ash, and a Warmoth maple 24 3/4″-scale conversion-neck ’59 carve with 6115 stainless-steel frets and a CBS-style headstock.

I stained the body a dark brown and took a wire brush to it to open up the grain, then applied metallic-wax finishing paste in colors of blue, green, and silver to highlight the grain and make it colorful. Next was 20-plus thin coats of wipe-on polyurethane. I then finished the headstock the same way, though maple is much tougher to do. I ordered a labrador retriever decal for the headstock, finished over that, and sent Doug Shepard of Doug’s Custom Neck Plates a picture of Kosmo. He etched a line drawing of him onto a gold plate. Doug created a fantastic likeness!