Sometimes the recipient knows about it before it gets commissioned and sometimes it is a total surprise.
This was one that started as a total surprise about a year ago when one of my customer's wives decided to commission this beast, and then the cat had to be let out of the bag when her husband started serious talk of having a guitar made whilst plans were already underway.
As it happens she was almost 100% on target with what he was requested for hubby Ian (and to be fair I knew what Ian liked guitar-wise as when I have worked on his Fender strat he had told me of his wish to have a Les Paul to go with the strat).
With Ian having to be let in on the plan we only added a few extra details like a Graph Tech Ghost acoustic pickup system.
Their 10th wedding anniversary was last week and today they came to collect the beast (as last week they were busy doing romantic things that a new guitar would only distract from.)
So here is what was finally unveiled:
As you can see it is very much in the classic Black Custom mould.....
The rear view with the battery box and control panel for the piezo circuit board letting on that more is going on within
Of course it had our much liked all access heel - a deep set tenon right under the neck pickup allows the generous carving
I should have dusted it more before taking the photo - the black shows up every speck of dust as well as fingerprints
Neck was a 3 piece quartersawn mahogany construction with a volute for strength
Our new inlaid catseye logo looks fab inlaid into the ebony headstock fascia
Tuners were Sperzel trimlok in polished chrome
You can see that we prefer to use an ivoroid binding and we use Black tahiti pearl for the side dots - they glow different colours as the light hits them
I'd better give a few more specs
Body is mahogany (carefully chambered to lessen weight but not lose punch) with a maple cap
The neck is our favourite 3 piece quartersawn, long tenon going under the neck pickups
Tailpiece is a lightweight Gotoh aluminium one held in place firmly by Tonepros locking studs
The bridge is a GraphTech Ghost system in a resomax casting
Magnetic pickups are a pair of BKP Mules with 4 conductor wiring going to a coil split on a push pull on the tone control
Volume pots are 550k BKP ones made by CTS
So we have 2 magnetic volumes, and piezo volume and a master tone for the BKPs
The mini switch switches back and forth between electric guitar and acoustic sounds with a mix position too
Straplocks are Dunlop
[b]And the sound - pretty fantastic![/b]
