A brief summary of the guitars I've made.
#1 — My first guitar.
This one was designed after a '72 thinline. The shade of orange was chosen to match the McLaren F1 colors, as Fender's custom colors used to be automotive paints, but McLaren was a kiwi so it's a cool twist. It features a piezo system to capture the acoustic sounds, and SD Antiquity humbuckers because they sound good and are used by Laura and James of Against Me!. The soundhole is a modified treble clef, as that is a stylized G which matches both my first and last initial.
#2 — A Strat
A stratocaster style design for a very dear friend of mine. The things as heavy as an anchor because of the specific piece of wood used on the body, and the flame figure on the neck is still one of my favorite things. The pickups are made by Mr Glyn, a local maker and someone who was integral to me starting this career.
Bonus! Swamp Kauri LP style thing.
Swamp kauri is incredibly special — wood thousands of years old preserved in the anaerobic environment. I didn't make this, but I did the technical stuff and helped and advised. It was a huge step up for my fretwork, finish work, and inlay work that's now paying off for the current projects. It's now in France!
In progress:
Jazzmaster commission — featuring block inlays, another flame maple neck, binding, and a whole host of fun things. Just about ready for paint but want to string it up first.
Bass — for my lil bro, custom inlays, custom electronic scheme, musicman pickups. Gonna be wild, just need to finish fretboard and neck then it's ready for paint.
Also a myriad of future plans where hopefully the new CNC techniques I'm practicing will massively improve turnaround time, but at the moment I've just been flat out with the maintenance side of the business. Lets me know what not to do tho! So many terrible design decisions I've come across that just don't hold up over time and I just don't want to contribute to making some future repair person sad.
#3: Polaris
Took me a while to do this one, but it's done. Precision bass body in lightweight swamp ash, custom headstock and ultra modern neck profile in maple and swamp kauri laminate, custom color firestorm effect finish, top of the line hardware. Absolutely unique, but plays perfectly and does things that no other bass can.
