Well, here she is. My Thinskin 1962 Reissue Stratocaster in Olympic White. Lovely to play. Have waited something like 10 years to be able to afford an axe of this quality. Won�t be leaving my hands too soon�E Now, if only I could afford some strings for it�E

William

Hi There,

Here's my axes: Epiphone Banjo, Epiphone Strat-copy, Ibanez ATK Bass and George Washington classical nylon-string. Played as one, I'm sure the sounds produced by these four instruments could put an end to war, cure all disease, and ban U2 forever from our airwaves. Alas, I can only play one at a time. Therefore, the curse of U2 lies squarely on my shoulders.

I am truly sorry.

Steve Moss

My Tokai Love Rock/Les Paul Copy. The guitar that has more or less been with me from the start of my strumming. Has an absolute fabulous finish (Tea Burst I believe). Always love the Les Paul and wanted to be like Slash.

Now the guitar has Kluson tuners and a Seymour Duncan Alnico2Pro in the neck and Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates in the bridge. It is my absolute pride and joy.

Oh did I mention it plays great, and sounds even better? Weighs a ton too :)

Jack

This is a completely custom made guitar that I got built for me by a ASH customs in Auckland. Apart from looking amazing, this guitar has wicked playability for example it has great fret access due to the neck heel. No fretboard inlays but there is a headstock inlay of "surge". Three piece neck and 24 frets and ESP shape headstock.

Alder body
Maple neck-thru
Ebony FB
Glowing side dots
EMG 81/85
Gotoh 510 tuners
Gotoh trem

I have had this guitar about 2 weeks and I have nothing negative to say about it. Blew away my expectations, never played a greater guitar. I love the wow factor when people see it for the first time too haha

Surge

I currently own 2 Martins (a D35 and a D12-28) and an Aria classical, but I�d have to say my favourite for the moment is an OM-style guitar I built myself in January. I took a luthier�s course with David Freeman and Paddy Burgin, and in the space of 3 weeks transformed some bits of wood into this honey. I was lucky in the draw for wood and found myself with a stunning set of Indian rosewood back and sides, and an exceptional �euro-spruce�E(Picea abies) top. The neck is sapele and the fingerboard and bridge are made from rosewood. It�s not my favourite just because I built it myself �Eit truly plays as well as any guitar I�ve ever had in my hands. My Martin D35 has a 1-11/16�Enut width, while this guitar has a 1-3/4�E and that extra 1/16�Emakes an amazing difference in the being able to do positive fingering with my fat digits. In the last few months, the guitar has continued to �open up�E while the setup has remained stable

The course was a wonderful experience �Ewe learned a ton of theory and stuff you�ll never find in books. The success I had building this guitar has convinced me to continue in the field and I�ve started work on three more. My goal is first of all to make instruments that play and sound better than anything available from top line factory production �EI want them to be played! As a matter of personal pride in my workmanship, I also want them to look stunning, so these next guitars will have much more elaborate inlay work and finish, while retaining the beauty of top-quality woods. I�m open to suggestions from other guitarists as to what they�d want to see in a hand-made instrument �Eperhaps their ideas can help me produce instruments that appeal to discerning musicians.

Tim

Peter Stephen of Christchurch is one of NZ's foremost Luthiers. He produces small numbers of finest quality stringed instruments from orchestral basses to classical, flamenco and jazz guitars.

I have been a professional classical-guitar player for over two decades so the following custom specs reflect my preferences:

Main timbers: Hand carved Walnut top, Maple neck, Tasmanian Blackwood (contoured) back. The body has chambers to reduce weight and facilitate an open woody tone.

23 fret compound-radius Ebony fingerboard deliberately free of inlay. Long (Fender) scalelength approx 650mm (I forget exact length).

String-spacing: at nut 43mm, at saddle 55.5mm. This neck is for the real business, not a prissy skinny-job with cobweb strings.

The glued heel is contour shaped for comfort and upper position access, no horrible Les Paul type step/lip at heel/binding join.

Hand-carved Ebony and 'nubone' bridge-saddle. Carved Ebony pickup surrounds, knobs. The volume knob is positioned to enable easy access for swell.

Gotoh tuners.

Kinman Hx "Woodstock" frontSeymour Duncan "59'er" rear

Note the front strap mount, this gun-black rod can be easily removed (unscrewed) and replaced with another pin that sits flush to the body when required. The long mount places the strap in the same position as the upper-horn on a Strat-style guitar does. Good bye to Les Paul style aches in the shoulder.

OK, so I had to wait two and a half years for delivery, but this instrument walks all over big name factory instruments from Gibson, Fender etc.

Richard

These are my sweethearts. On the right is my Ibanez Artcore AF75 in very dark Blueburst. On the left is my Korean made Rogue LX408 8 string bass. The Ibanez, aside from being pretty, is completely hollow so it is plenty loud enough to be used as an acoustic. When plugged in it has a very warm mellow sound. The bass has 4 regular strings doubled up with 4 matching guitar strings, similar to a 12 string guitar. It has a very unique sound. It also has active electronics so it can be quite loud and has a wide variety of tones. These are both "budget" instruments but they sound great and I love playing them very much.

Augustine