Route 66 Guitar

Route 66 guitar

Route 66 map

2026 is not only the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence, but also the 100th anniversary of Route 66. Long before modern interstate highways were built in the 1950s, the US began a system of federally designated highways and in 1926, stitched together a bunch of previously state run highways into the 2,448 mile (3,940 km) Route 66. It ran from Chicago to Los Angeles (technically it takes a right turn in LA and ends in Santa Monica).

There are a lot of kitschy sights along old Route 66 - not all in one stretch as this composite shows

Route 66 starting point Navy Pier

In honor of the 100th anniversary, Chicago extended the Route 66 designation 10 blocks north and 5 blocks east, so it now officially starts at Navy Pier. I can now see its starting point out the window of my condo. And since it stretches all the way to the Santa Monica pier in LA, it's now "pier to pier."

Route 66 sign

I had bought a Route 66 sign years ago thinking I should build such a guitar. But it wasn't until the 2026 4th of July holiday that I finally got inspired to make it happen.

Route 66 body shaping and routing

You can't buy a body already shaped like the sign, so I needed to buy a 2" thick "body blank" slab of poplar and then use a jigsaw to cut out the body shape. Then I used a router to carefully route out the neck pocket. I used a drill with a Forstner bit to create the cavities needed for the pickups and controls, smoothing out the contours by using a wood chisel.

Route 66 guitar controls

I cut the Route 66 sign for the neck pocket and drilled out holes for the volume/tone controls , pickups and bridge posts. Because the body is not as long as typical guitar bodies, I used a one piece wraparound bridge. The pickups were some spare parts I had laying around - a 6k Tele neck pickup and a 12k dual rail Tele bridge pickup with a coil splitting switch.

Route 66 headstock

I used a spare neck that originally came from an Epiphone Les Paul XL that I had previously converted to an 8 string Mandocello. The spare neck was a light blue color, so I painted the body in a similar shade. Rather than showing the Epiphone logo on the headstock, I printed out a picture of a light blue 1960s Corvette onto self adhesive vinyl, stuck it onto the headstock and cut it to the right shape.

Route 66 jack plate

I added some Route 66 fret markers to the neck. As a final touch, I had a Route 66 medallion sitting around so I drilled that out to use as the output jack plate.

I'm very happy with the result. It plays nicely and can really snarl when switched to the full humbucker in the bridge position. Originally the neck pickup was a bit too bassy, so I swapped out the 250k volume pot for a 500k one. The one thing I'd do differently is make the neck pocket 1/2" shorter so I'd have a bit easier access to the upper frets.

Tom's Route 66 guitar