Electric Guitars
Clarendon Solid body
Now available to order. Standard spec as follows (many other options available to order):
Scale length - 650mm
Body - Khaya, black limba or walnut (300mm across lower bout), available with or without cutaway
Neck - Maple, khaya or cherry, bolt-on
Fretboard - Granadillo or katalox, compound radius, 2 way truss rod, side dots, zero fret, Tusq nut
Bridge - to match fretboard
Tuners - Grover Sta-tite
Pickup - 1 Golden Age P90 (neck or bridge) - choice of alnico 3 or 5 magnets
Controls - Volume & Tone (choice of 'blower' or bass cut push/push switch on tone), Daka-ware knobs
Hardware - nickel, with stainless steel hitch pins and neck screws
Fretwire - Jescar 47095
Finish - Tru-oil
Terminating the strings with hitch pins behind the bridge is inspired by Mike Doolin & Jeffrey Elliot's steel string bridge design, as well as by traditional zither pins. The pickup coil and body cavities are well shielded, and there is no string ground. On guitars with flat headstocks I now fit a Tusq nut as standard rather than the string retainer shown .
From £1100
To see a custom variation on this model, with a body designed by my customer Ian Roberts, see below.
I'm currently developing a couple of other models (along with a hollow body electric mandolin), but in the meantime I'm also happy to accept one-off commissions such as these:
Solid Body Electric Tenor Guitar
This was made for a friend of mine who happened to have a bit of leftover iroko worktop and thought it might make a nice body for an electric tenor guitar. It did indeed...
Bound birch top over the iroko body (Kay Venetian style), sycamore neck with granadillo fretboard, Grover ukulele tuners and a Golden Age lipstick pickup. Sounds lovely, and would also work well with a tailpiece and different tuners as an octave mandolin.
Custom Solid Body Electric Guitar
Based on my Clarendon model, but with a body shape and headstock inlay designed by the customer, Ian Roberts. Neck and body are made of sipo (aka utile - thanks to Alastair from Reid Timber for the lovely blanks), and the fretboard is katalox. Bridge and pickup are Golden Age from Stewmac. A simple guitar, but sounds great...
This guitar came back to the workshop recently to have a second pickup fitted, and for some neck reshaping (getting things just right first time can be tricky when everything has to be done remotely, as in the current pandemic...). It was a tight squeeze, but I managed to fit a pickup selector in the original LP Junior sized control cavity. This is how it looks now:
