I was inspired by The Tone King’s 5 Guitar Builders You Need To Know post and thought I would do my own list and encourage the other guitar blogs to do the same so we can share as many cool guitar brands as possible so that people realise they have a choice outside the big name brands.


Suhr Guitars
Well this one will come as no surprise to anyone who reads my blog regularly, I fell in love with Suhr guitars a while ago and had G.A.S. so bad I had to get one. What most people don’t realise is that John Suhr has been around a long time and worked as a Master Builder in the Fender Custom Shop for 5 years making guitars for people like Scott Henderson and Amps for Eric Clapton. John also worked for Bob Bradshaw in the early 90′s building amps like the CAA OD100 which he later bought the rights to manufacture himself.

Suhr guitars are, in my opinion, the Creme de la creme. Each guitar has so much attention to detail and tone that will unfortunately sentence your other guitar/s to a solemn life in their hardcase.

http://suhrguitars.com

 


Grosh Guitars
Don Grosh comes a very close 2nd to Suhr for me, many think he is number 1 but then that accounts for everyone mentioned in this list. Although Grosh makes some very nice Strat and Tele shape guitars including hollowbody Teles he also makes some very cool retro style guitars like the Electrajet which led to what I think is his stand out model, the Limited Edition TurboJet. If I had endless supplies of money, this along with a Burl Fireburst Suhr Modern would be on my list.

http://groshguitars.com/

 


Tom Anderson Guitarworks
Tom Anderson is probably one of the best known Boutique guitar builders who I first heard about because Steve Vai was using one of his guitars before creating the JEM for Ibanez. If you check out the Artist list you will see everyone from Keith Richards to Kirk Hammett owns a Tom Anderson guitar and for good reason, Tom makes some of the most beautifully and meticulously crafted Strat style, Tele style and Les Paul style guitars. The Drop Top is the guitar that I find most recognisable from his models and probably the most similar to my Suhr S4 out of all of these builders.

http://www.andersonguitars.com

 


Frank Hartung
Frank Hartung is a guitar builder from Germany whose distinctive sculpted bodies and headstocks caught my eye a while back. The Embrace is my favourite model with its highly figured top, single cut style body and with lines that make it unique while still offering a tip of the hat to the classic Les Paul. Each guitar seems to have a unique setup with pickups such as Bare Knuckle Pickups but individually hand-wound Harry Haussel are used as standard. Also many of the guitars in the gallery feature custom inlays.

http://www.hartung-guitars.com

 


James Trussart
You may have already heard of James Trussart as Metallica’s James Hetfield used what looks to be a Trussart Steel Deville on the Death Magnetic tour last year (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uIUxxrSi1s) but if not check them out, James makes some very interesting guitars which are pretty unique. James uses steel rather than wood as the primary material for his guitars and not just resonator style, but steel Tele and Les Paul shapes too. They are available in everything from shiny mirror-like finish to a distressed and rusted worn look. They aren’t cheap but none of the guitars I have mentioned today are, they are all boutique guitars that look and sound great.

http://www.jamestrussart.com/