ilovefuzz.com

I really like builders that make their own hardware or put effort into unique bits and pieces on their stuff. So many guys basically come up with a very basic, been done to death build process, route the wood and then just slap off the shelf components on it and then dress up the marketing with crystal lettuce, tone tapping, tone wood talk. Even stuff like custom pickguards and knobs make hand made guitars a million times cooler.

TK Smith really takes that to extremes, sandcasting his own tremolos, building his own pickups (which are complicated Dyna-sonic style ones), doing a lot of custom inlay and scroll saw work for fingerboards and pickguards, custom made guitar cases, wrapped up in constant Western Swing niche. Pretty much every thing but the pots, jack, wires, fret wire, and switch is scratch built.

They are really expensive, but the amount of work that goes into them is legit. A lot of Gibson Custom Shop guitars are in the same price range and are hastily built with 90% mass production work...where as some Smiths must take hundreds of hours to complete. The total time that went into building the tailpiece and bridge on that mando double neck is probably more than total time for Gibson Custom Shop to shit out a $9k Les Paul. He does every thing on really old machines too, which seems a bit gimmicky but worth mentioning.

Agree to all that. The Harvester guy builds a part of parts himself. So does the Island Instruments guy. Makes those way more interesting to me.

Chankgeez wrote:

Dandolin wrote:also, dat avatar you pinin' for the northlands?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blakiston%27s_fish_owl

I've been see'in an owl lately on my nightly walk. Not that one, but I liked the look of that one.

(Nice contribution, Achtane! )

Gotta rep my friend Jason Sanford:

http://j-s-sanford.com/JSS_instruments_table.html





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiU0bCJiuhQ

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiU0bCJiuhQ[/youtube]

These are super cool, never seen them.

I don't like all of their stuff (particularly the super exotic wood type ones) but I think this company does some neat designs, I'm a fan of the body shapes and detailing when they can restrain themselves with the wood finishes . And I have played a couple and they were lovely to play and made with great attention to detail.

http://alpher.co.uk/

yeah, those are nice

I am also reminded today of Moar guitar’s thin ES shaped guitars which just look great to me.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CB3irdspqCx/

I like the ES shape when really thin - this looks even thinner than the Hofner Verithins, As thin as the Dean DBZ (now Diamond?) ones which have the shape but are solidbody. Erm, whassitcalled...Imperial. And I see that Diamond now have them with F Holes. But, yeah, this is way cooler. Especially at the headstock

Yes those super thin Moars (and other similar thin ES guitars) look cool.

definitely agree on Creston, Millimetric, and Island.

has TunaTone been mentioned?

Ooo that is cool

I like the idea of this thread and agree with the mention of Harvester guitars (especially Antonio series), Millimetric instruments, Schorr guitars and Serek basses. I also dig Obstructures, Deimel (especially the Firestar), New Complexity, Ceci guitars (especially the earlier builds with aluminium components) and Teuffel (except for that one really out there model). On the more vanilla side of things I also enjoy the aesthetics of Seger guitars and what the Frank Brothers make. Hopefully I have some more time later to expand this post with some example pics.

Chankgeez wrote:

Dandolin wrote:also, dat avatar you pinin' for the northlands?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blakiston%27s_fish_owl

I've been see'in an owl lately on my nightly walk. Not that one, but I liked the look of that one.

(Nice contribution, Achtane! )

Gotta rep my friend Jason Sanford:

http://j-s-sanford.com/JSS_instruments_table.html





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiU0bCJiuhQ

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiU0bCJiuhQ[/youtube]

Ah, love Neptune, haven't seen them in a while.

My friend Jeff, aka Ozma Instruments, does some neat stuff: https://www.instagram.com/ozma_instruments/

I really want a millimetric baritone, I think they look awesome in a brutalist kind of way.

I am also oddly fascinated by IHush guitars because the engraving is really wild even though its not something I would ever play personally. https://www.facebook.com/pg/IHushGuitar ... e_internal