Artisan Master #071

Artisan Master # 071

Body: Korina - Chambered
Carved Top: I dunno...8A Quilted Maple
Neck: Old Growth Brazilian Rosewood
Fretboard: Young Growth Brazilian Rosewood
Pickups:Wagner's with Stabilized Wood Bobbins (Ziricote & Birdseye Maple)
Bridge: Thorn 1-pc. Tremolo
Cocobolo & BRW appointments - no plastic!

Fretboard inlay: 2 soaring eagles. These were entirely hand-cut by my father. Every feather is a separate piece of black mother of pearl. The talons are 14K Gold. The beaks and feet are gold mother of pearl and the heads are highly figured white mother of pearl. He did a kick ass job on these!!! Almost 200 hours worth - unreal!

Back plates: Cocobolo with another eagle inlay, again by pops. This eagle image was from a photograph taken by Dave Metta which is stunning on it's own. I hope we did it justice.

Color: Burnt Orange

Weight: 8.1 lbs. - one of the heavier ones due to the BRW neck, tremolo and 3 pickups.

Initial tone report:

This can really be summed up in one word: Sustain.

I'm going to cut and paste a segment from an e-mail I sent to Carl after playing it for the first hour. I don't think I could rewrite the report the same way, now, as I did moments after placing it down for the first time. I hope you don't mind Carl. Here goes -

" Hello Carl,
There is something truly unreal with this guitar. I can honestly say I have never played a guitar with more sustain. I am talking endless decay. I've got it set on clean, barely room level and I can gently pluck a note and it rings for an incredible length of time. To the point that it actually sounds like it gets a little louder before it finally and slowly starts to drop off. The taper is so long. No left-hand vibrato "driving" the note, these are just fretted/plucked notes with no vibrato at all.
Okay, sustain aside...it sounds incredible. You've got 10 settings that all sound killer. Usually, with this many settings there is 3 maybe 4 that really stand out...yours has 10 settings that really stand out. I can't help it, I am flat out in love with this guitar."

I don't know if that conveys the excitement I was experiencing while typing...but needless to say I was chuffed.
After working on this guitar for so long, you can imagine how relieved I was when I plugged it in, played it, and fell in love with it...whew.

Carl, my friend, this has been an experience for both of us. You have been as cool as a cucumber this whole time and I appreciate that. You had this visualized in your mind from the very beginning, I hope we did you right.

Thank you!

Ron



The early stages of the inlay. Probably back last October or so. The pile of black mother of pearl slabs are layed out and each one is hand selected for color, "flash" orientation, and figure. This is all to make the eagle's wings appear as realistic as possible. You can see the multiple layout drawings where each feather is X-acto knifed out and glued to the shell. They are then hand cut with a jeweler's saw on a v-block. Endless hours of cutting and fitting. When there are this many pieces contacting one another, if one feather is off just a little, it starts to throw them all off. We're talking 300 pieces! Pop's rocks!	Now the back plate inlay in mid progress. Same as the fretboard eagles, but since the eagle is much smaller, the design is simplified.	Nothing too revolutionary...just cool. That's a birdseye maple single coil cover with a cocobolo skirt.
		As many have said, Ron sweats ALL the details... here is the "behind the scenes" of the fretboard inlays..note that the inlay is cut short of the fret slots so that the tangs of the frets will be properly bedded in wood, not inlay shell. This means that when I need to have a fret job done (because I can't stop playing this guitar) it will not lift or crack the inlay and there will be proper seating for the new frets. This inlay was intricate enough without adding this significant amount of additional work, but Ron would not have it any other way..because this is the right way to do it, and he expects it to be played!! You can also see just how imaculate the detail of the inlay work is...even blown up to show even the slightest imperfection!!