Prototypes – Would you like to own a bargain guitar?

Hi folks.

There’s been a long silence from me on the blog as I’ve found it hard to find the time to write at all recently. Although I’ve been quiet on here and on Social Media, work has continued on a number of projects across the winter with some more guitars going to custom design customers.

At this point, there’s a few guitars in the house…..actually quite a few. Some are part of my collection from the ’90s and early 00s – and some are prototypes that I kept because I became attached to them.

However, it’s become clear that they cannot continue to pile up as I build experimental models – I simply don’t have the time to play them or the space to store them. So I’m going to refurbish them and market them to you at some pretty remarkable prices for a hand built instrument.

First up though is a brand new build this year: the Sapele Viola:

Excuse the video rendering quality, but the idea was to get the best sound, not picture.

The original idea behind building this guitar was to use reclaimed  wood and the best of the ‘non branded’ parts available. That didn’t go totally according to plan as I used branded Pickups and Wilkinson hardware. But all in all the budget was kept manageable because the wood was sourced from offcuts at my local hardware store.

So the long and short of it is that the parts for the guitars cost about £300 to bring in. I had finish and sundries in stock so I won’t count those. The guitar then took about 60-70 hours of work (which even at the minimum wage of £7.50 p/h equates to £450 – 525, and you can’t get even a reasonable chippy to fit a door frame for less than £30 an hour these days). It’s in a hard case which cost another £70.

So I looked at all that together, and at the lowest labour price, the guitar should be around the £720-795 mark to just break even on it.

So here’s the bargain:

I’m accepting any sensible offer for this guitar around the £550 mark – which is what roughly it’s going to cost me to renew the heating in the workshop so that I don’t half freeze to death this winter!

 

This is an entirely hand built guitar, mostly with non powered hand tools, and there is (and will only be) one of these guitars as it was a purely experimental build to try a range of parts and techniques all in one project. The video above shows the success of the idea, it sounds absolutely wonderful despite my rusty playing.

It has Wilkinson Hardware, Alnico 2 Humbuckers and is made almost entirely from Sapele and Ebony, including the control covers. The truss rod is BiFlex, frets are Dunlop and jumbo, dots MOP, nut is bone. It’s a set neck construction with a scalloped heel for ease of access to the top frets. The scale length is 24.5″ – the neck is a full C/D shape but plays incredibly fast with the 12″ radius. Switchcraft jack and Switch for reliability, Japanese Pots and strap locks. It weighs about as much as a solid body Les Paul (not one of the modern chambered jobs).

 

So contact me through the normal channels  to come and have a look at it and play it. It will be very much first come first served for this absolutely unique bargain of a guitar.

All the Best

Tony