I have featured the work of guitar graphic artist Jim Fogarty a couple of times on Guitar Noize for the Union Flag Twin Neck guitar but Jim recently contacted me to let me know he has finished the artwork on a special Leverty Guitar project. The Guardian guitar pictured left is something Jim started designed back in 2001, since then this has been an in-house project that I guess he has fit around his busy schedule hence the delay. This photo was shot before the guitar had been lacquered which will really bring the guitar to life. I will post a photo of the finished product once Jim’s partner in Leverty Custom Guitars, Dick Levens has finished the build but I can tell you it is a one piece Mahogany body and will have a one piece Maple neck with Ebony fingerboard.

So enjoy this little preview and if you want to see the entire painting process, which I think is an amazing collection of photographs showing the initial outlines all the way to the finished product (over 100 photos in all) head over to the Guardian guitar project page on Jim fogarty’s website. 

Last month I featured a couple of Gibson’s “Inspired By” series guitars, the Kiefer Sutherland KS336 and the Okuda Tamio Les Paul OT Special. Well Gibson just added the Zakk Wylde ZV Buzzsaw pictured above to the range which has to be one of the ugliest guitars Gibson have ever produced.  The ZV in case you aren’t aware is a Zakk Wylde creation that is a cross between the classic Gibson Flying V and SG guitars. I’m not sure where or when the orange buzzsaw graphic came about but I have seen it on an Epiphone Zakk Les Paul and it is just nasty compared to his classic black and white bullseye design.

So how does this guitar shape up, well it is solid mahogany, ebony finish top and back with a 3 piece maple neck. The fingerboard is single bound ebony
with pearl block inlays. It has EMG 81 and EMG 85 active humbuckers and a V shaped tail plate with Nashville Tune-o-matic bridge. I’m sure some metal heads or Zakk fans will want this guitar but its not going on my wishlist.

They say “This guitar is something a little different for Gibson, but it’s a lot of fun!”

There are 2 things I find really interesting about this Scott French SF3 guitar. The first is the bridge which resembles the bridge of a traditional bowed instrument such as a Violin and the nut which, well kind of doesn’t exist and is instead replace with individual guides:

”Open notes sound the same as fretted notes with a Zero Fret. Directly mounted Individual String Guides are solidly mated with the neck. The elements are round to match the circular theme established with the Braille logo, truss rod cover, tuner posts, knobs, etc. They also help avoid the ugly butt joints usually used with normal bar shaped nuts.” - check out a close up image here.

There isn’t so much information available about the bridge other than that it is a custom Ebony bridge with Graphite saddles. This custom bridge has been created with a radius that allows the strings to be bowed, obviously trying to bow an individual string on a traditional flat radius bridge is very tricky. A custom pair of Nordstrand humbuckers have been created for this guitar which also follow the radius of the bridge.

The only problem with this guitar would be that it would be hard to play normally so it is a very specific kind of guitar but this is obviously a one off created for Austin Amberg. The normal version of the SF3 has a Hipshot Baby Grand bridge so no need to buy a bow for it! 

Check this guitar out, this is one of the craziest and amazing guitars I think I have ever seen. How many guitars have you seen that can stand up on their own feet? their Dragon feet! This incredible creation is the latest guitar from Emerald Guitars Custom Shop which is a Dragon called Bahamut. The exciting thing is that the new Taiwanese owner Lee Hom ordered this guitar as a special centre piece for his world tour after seeing The Alien on Guitar Noize! Now the Alien was pretty amazing in itself but I can’t even comprehend how a guitar like this is created.

”The body is a chinese dragon that is twisted into the shape of a treble cleff and to top it all off we added another little dragon on the headstock. The body is hand shaped out of a special foam and then covered in carbon fibre to keep it both light and strong. The body is then completed with a special chrome paint that gives a beautiful metal look. Of course there always has to be a little something extra and in this case it is the red lasers in the eyes. on stage with some smoke these just look amazing.”

”As with all my guitars it is only part of the deal making it look good, it also has to play and sound great and this baby meets all these criteria. The Carbon neck makes a super stable structure so a perfect set up will stay a perfect set up and with stainless frets you wont even need to worry about fret wear. Its got a beautiful deep tone also due to the twin humbuckers and the extra dense centre section of the guitar.”

The amazing thing about this guitar is that it was completed in just 6 weeks, Alistair from Emerald tells me he was doing 14 hour days in order to get the instrument finished in time. I’m sure you will agree it was certainly worth the effort!

How about this for one of the most unique solutions to travel guitar design? The Stow-Away™ looks like a cross between a Fender Stratocaster and a Steinberger when not packed in a suitcase with a few classic Strat finish variations available, red, black, sunburst and the Deluxe model which has an Amber finish with Figured Maple over an Alder body, a Maple neck with a 22 fret Rosewood fingerboard and 2 Seymour Duncan Humbuckers as opposed to the standard version which has 3 Alnico Pole Single Coil pickups but these can be upgraded before the guitar is shipped should you wish. Both versions have Graph-Tech Saddles.

The key design element of this guitar stems from Stewart Guitars’ trademark ’Clip Joint Neck Connector‘ which allows the neck to be quickly removed (without tools) for easy travel or compact storage. When disassembled, the neck of the Stow-Away™ can be stored in a diagonal storage cavity in the back of the guitar body.  (See photo above.) The Stow-Away™ can then be discretely stored and in a well padded carrying case (included).

Check out this video to see just how quickly and easily the Stow-Away can be disassembled! This guitar is available from $400 via the Stewart Guitars’ website and they also run a “Loaner Program” so that you can try before you buy.

John Backlund started out as an Illustrator in the 70’s, entirely self taught John has always had an eye for Retro design. Although over the years he has had many jobs and sideline interests he seems to have finally found his niche with the design of this amazing Retro look guitars and amplifiers. John has teamed up with Bruce Bennett, a luthier for 30 years who has worked for Gibson (well to be specific he says the Steinberger/Tobias division in Nashville) and Warrior Guitars. He also designs custom effects pedals and amps. The third member of the partnership is Kevin Maxfield, a guitarist for many years who has been working with Bruce since 2002 designing and building inexpensive hot rod guitars.

Well the combination seems to be working as they have created the JBD100, check out the gallery page for some great hi-res shots. You can choose to customize the guitar when you order by choosing which 2 colours you would like from a pre-defined colour palette. This palette updates the photo of the guitar so that you can see exactly how your guitar will look. Aside from the colour you can choose which wood you prefer for the body, a choice of Mahogany, Alder, Basswood or Maple. You can also chooseeither a Maple or Mahogany neck and a Maple, Rosewood or Ebony fingerboard. But the coolest custom feature I like for this guitar is rather than choosing the DiMarzio or Seymour Duncan pickups, both of which are an option, you can choose to have colour matched Lace Sensor Alumitone™ Pickups. If you take a look at this photo to see a close up. I didn’t know anything about these pickups but I found a whole load of information at, surprise surprise, Lace Music Products’ site.

”This radical departure from pickup design is aluminum based, rather than copper. Result: less resistance, higher output coupled to a “current driven design” as opposed to conventional voltage based pickups. More bass then traditional single coils, more volume, mids are slightly more then conventional pickups. Highs are clear yet smooth, nicely equalized.”

Yesterday’s post about the Goldfish guitar jogged my memory about a guitar company I discovered recently actually called Goldfish Guitars who created this wonderful guitar pictured to the left called the Juba Clownfish. This small bodied guitar is designed for kids so it is lightweight and has a short scale neck length of 22 1/2”. The guitar only has 20 frets but I guess little kids aren’t going to notice they are missing 1, or 2, or 4 depending on what kind of guitar you are accustomed to! I couldn’t find any details about what wood is used for the body or neck but the fretboard is made from Rosewood. A great feature of this guitar is the built in speaker powered by a 9 volt battery, which means you can practice on the move or if you prefer it can be plugged into an amp, pretty clever! It also comes with a padded carrying case, guitar lead, strap, and 3 Goldfish Fishpicks, all of this for $149.

As well as the clownfish there are a number of different fish guitars available which are basically the same shape with different finishes, such as the gold erm goldfish guitar! This one doesn’t have a speaker. There are also packages available that include a 10W practice amp and electronic tuner for a little extra.

I was recently contacted by a 15 year old Guitar Noize reader called Dana who built the Goldfish guitar you see on the left. But wait, this was the actual original message ”I built this guitar about a year ago.” That would have made Dana 14 then!? Now what I think is great about this guitar is that Dana had the ingenuity to get the guitar made on without having to be handy with a chisel and saw, a nice bit of delegation went on. I’ll let Dana explain:

”I had wanted a goldfish guitar since I was little and was told the only way to get one would be to build it myself. So I did. I took the design to a place in Clemmons, North Carolina that cuts cabinets, doors, ect. They cut a piece of maple in the shape of a fish. My guitar teacher at Jackson’s Music did all the routing for the electronics. After the cavities had been taped off, I took the wood to an autobody paint shop. I picked the color and they painted it.

When I was little I saw a tv commercial for Pepperidge Farm goldfish. The commercial had two guys playing goldfish-shaped guitars at a bus stop. Ever since then I wanted a guitar shaped like the “snack that smiles back.””

I thought that was great, get a cabinet maker to cut the wood, an autobody paint shop sprayed it and a guitar teacher did the routing. This process took Dana 6 months in total. Clever stuff eh?

I’m not sure if I have ever seen this done before, and to be honest its a bit freaky and I don’t like it, but Myka Guitars created a Custom Quilted Maple guitar with humbucker covers that match the top of the guitar! Look closely and you will see that the quilted maple pattern is almost seamless from top to pickup. It makes them camouflaged, almost like the guitar is supposed to look like it has no pickups.There are plenty of hi-res images here so you can see for yourself. I don’t really like the Camphor Veneer back either it looks a bit speckly and weird which I sometimes don’t mind, I’ve seen a few Spalted Maple guitars that I think look great but in this case I think just the natural Korina body would have sufficed. The neck is interesting, made from Cocobolo it has a very rustic look to it where you can see the grain that naturally creates a kind of Skunk stripe effect. The neck is topped with a Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard and the headstock naturally uses matching Quilted Maple to the top. The side dots are Pearl outlined in Sterling Silver which sounds extravagant! For the binding Flamed Maple is used on the front, back, and headstock. The Purfling is Abalone on the top and back. Myka have used the best quality wood for this guitar using 5A Maple for the top. The pickups are a Lollar P90s neck and middle and a Lollar Imperial Humbucker in the bridge position. Finally there is an array of switches, knobs and a selector to control the electronics but basically each pickup has an on/off switch and a volume knob. The on/off mini switches are only active when the 3 way selector is in the center position.

The GZ Guitars - 3 Sisters Series is a collection of 3 Gibson ES-335 guitars, ”Flower Dance”, ”Back Stage” and ”Heart Strings”. These guitars have all had custom paint jobs courtesy of Jennifer Janesko who is known for her glamour illustrations and paintings featured in Playboy, Maxim and PINUP magazines as well as various airbrush art publications.

”The artist’s work is a fusion of her love for pinup, fashion and glamour. High contrast and sharp direction are the two elements that form the basis of her art. The artist uses airbrush and paintbrush to create mixed media paintings. Studies are created using a wide variety of materials including charcoal, pastel, colored pencil, watercolor, ink and graphite on various surfaces.”

Here are the stats for each of the 3 guitars:

Flower Dance and Back Stage
This guitar is a USA Gibson ES-335. The custom pickups were made by Peter Florance at Voodoo. Modeled after the early 57’ PAF (no decal) Humbuckers, they have a wonderful, warm, organic tone. Custom made formvar wire give them enhanced mid’s and upper low’s, and result in an incredible sound not found in stock 335’s. All work was done through GZ’s Custom Shop in New Jersey. This guitar is signed by the artist and comes with a certificate of authenticity. Custom Gibson hard case included.

Heart Strings
Heart Strings is a USA Gibson ES-335, a classic Gibson model in the class of the Les Paul. It has stock Gibson Humbucker pickups and hardware. It was signed by the artist and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and a custom Gibson hard case.

These guitars are all for sale so head over to GZ Guitars’ website to contact them about a price.