Price: $1200 USD (includes hard foam case) – still available
This guitar was inspired by an evening at a Def Leppard concert. Yup, we were rocking out at the Forum in Los Angeles and I was enjoying song after song. During one song I closed my eyes for about a minute just taking in the sound and energy by listening. I was aware that the lighting had changed, but when I opened my eyes, I was greeted by an awesome sight! A picture perfect 80’s laser light show! Seconds later, the lasers locked in the fog in a green diamond pattern. I knew instantly I wanted that pattern on a guitar. The next day I started carving this body.
And what a body it is! It’s a genuine one-piece solid hunk of mahogany, cut to shape, contoured and hand finished. The inset lines were hand carved with a Dremel and a jig to keep things straight and parallel. All lines stop 1/4″ from any edge – the sides and around the pickups and hardware. The hardest part was continuing the lines into the comfort carve,and I won’t lie – you’ll notice some, um, “character” there. 😉
The body is a solid, string-through design and the carved lines are filled with a combination of gold paste and gold and silver flake to give the it the ability to catch light. The finish is 18 coats of Tru Oil, with the final 10 spiked with gold flakes, which you’ll find randomly embedded in the finish. Just another detail to catch the eye, and if you run your hand over the finish, you’ll feel them subtly hiding under the finish in spots. Final detail was the top surface was pore-filled with the gold paste as well, creating subtle (can I really use that word with so much gold in play here?! LOL) fills in the grain of the body – you can see it in a couple of the images below, but you have to look close and it’s really only noticeable in the closeups. See? Subtle… 😉
The neck is a special custom piece as well, a combo of mahogany with a cocobolo fingerboard for a bit of visual pop. Nut width is a svelte 1.65 inches and the carve is slick and fast. This neck I had custom prepared by John at Carruther’s Guitars here in Southern California using their HAAS V4 CNC machine, as well as some good old fashioned skill and muscle to accomplish the final carve and shapes. The truss rod is accessed via the heel. (The neck in the pics below is a maple/maple unit I had on the body while waiting on the custom neck – more photos shortly!)
Hardware is Wilkenson-sourced and the controls are reversed to allow for easier volume swells.
Pickups are from Rio Grande, a set of their Big Bottom pickups. The bridge is their Muy Grande p’up with fat poles and rings in at 8.5K with it’s Alnico 5 magnets, and the neck is a classic Tall Boy with a cool 50’s tone, and it sings at 7K with another set of Alnico 5 magnets in place. This is a great YouTube video of these pickups in action, though obviously in a different body.
