Life has thrown a few curveballs in the last couple of months, but I’ve also been pretty hard at work with everything on the bench.
There’s ‘Amy’ v3.0, the epoxy-topped poster art Amy Winehouse Tele, which is finally being assembled, plus ‘The Navy Lark’, a blue sparkle Treblemaker which thanks to The Cost of Living Crisis™ has changed spec from when it was originally ordered – the hardware got downgraded as the customer was having trouble justifying the final outlay in the face of the UK’s world-beating energy bill hikes. All my built-to-order guitars are the same terms – a third upfront, a third on assembly and a third on delivery. That way, if circumstances change for any reason, we have a chance of working it out to everyone’s satisfaction. In this case, dialling the hardware back from original Gretsch Filter’trons to some standard PAF pickups and a genuine Bigsby downgraded to a Chinese import copy, and we were able to completely waive the third payment, so that the customer doesn’t have to play it wearing mittens.
I’m also going through a bit of an ‘interesting, rustic-looking natural woods’ phase, as evidenced by these two – on the right is a standard Tele with a spalted swamp ash top that is going to have an illustration woodburned into the top. The left is yet another Treblemaker, with a gorgeous spalted rosewood top. This one will have three cream P90 pickups and a just a short Tele bridge and tailpiece in place of the usual Bigsby, so that all that interesting-looking wood gets a show.
There have also been a couple of repairs that help pay the bills, but that will be it for a month or two, as I am offski back to France yet again, and am hopeful that this time will be the last, as maybe (don’t jinx it, don’t jinx it) my house is finally sold??
