Beautiful guitars – Gloopy Guitars

PRS Periscope Hollowbody

Since I have quite a few guitars now and my attention has turned to making guitars, there’s only really one guitar that I still have any real intention of buying, and that is a PRS Hollowbody II.

The latest PRS at World Guitars is rather sumptuous, and would be more than a little tempting if it weren’t for the price! It’s another of the Periscope guitars, so this is a confluence of about three of my guitar obsessions. It also happens to be rather stunning!

On sale for a little under £10k, this Private Stock Hollowbody II in Aqua Violet Smoked Burst is a beautiful guitar. Fortunately, it’s already reserved for someone with deeper pockets than mine!

Spotlight on Luthiers – AC Guitars (seen at NAMM)

Not that I was at NAMM myself, but I was watching the Anderton’s video on boutique guitars at NAMM 2017, and noticed a UK luthier that I didn’t have on my list page. It’s AC Guitars, which is a one-man custom shop in Dumfrieshire, Scotland, and the man himself, Alan Cringean, focuses on custom bass guitars (although a recent post on his website says that he’s also making 6-string guitars under another name, Reiver Guitars).

AC Guitars makes a number of different body shapes and has lots of gorgeous finishes. The range includes basses with anything from four to seven strings.

If you’re looking for a special bass, they seem to be well worth a look.

PRS Periscope Guitars 6 and 7

Previously on this site, I posted links to the Periscope videos in which Paul Reed Smith and his team selected the woods for some very special guitars. Today I noticed two of them that have been sold by World Guitars. They both sport an unusual colour on the top, called Teal Nightshade. They are stunning guitars, and I thought they are worth posting here!

These are both McCarty 594 models with natural wood backs and necks; #6 has a swamp ash back, and #7 has a ziricote neck. The links lead to the World Guitars website where you can see more photos, but they probably won’t stay live forever.

Firstly, Periscope #6

And then Periscope #7

They were listed at £8,995 – a bit above most of our budgets, but certainly unique and very beautiful guitars!

Two more Guyton Brian May Specials

Andrew Guyton, a luthier who makes copies of the Red Special for Brian May himself, as well as for other customers, has just released videos of two more unique versions of the guitar that he has made for other (clearly well-heeled) customers.

The videos and a bit of explanatory text are on his blog. He’s also in the process of working on some videos of an overhaul of the original Red Special which will come out in the near future, and should be fascinating for any Brian May fans.

I have a Brian May guitar too, although it’s not red! You can read about it on my gear page for that guitar.

Gorgeous guitar, tasty playing…

One of the the YouTube channels that I follow, EytschPi42, has recently published a video that I enjoyed a lot. The channel owner is Henning Pauly, a German guitar nut (although the channel is in English), and he recently received a new guitar by Isaac Berumen which he unboxed in a separate video.

This is a gorgeous guitar, and the attention to detail is fantastic with lovely touches like custom tuner wings and knobs. Henning created an instrumental track with this guitar which I think is the best playing that I’ve seen from him, and so I decided to link it on here.

Henning’s videos are often entertaining although he does ramble on a bit, so they are often a bit long and so I tend not to watch all of them. He certainly knows his stuff, though, and he’s an engaging presenter with a lot of experience and interesting things to say.

Enjoy the playing and the guitar!

Spotlight on Luthiers: Stormshadow Guitarworks

Stormshadow Guitarworks is quite a well known custom shop luthiery, based in Sheffield. Like many of these companies, it’s a one-man band, a luthier called Rich Atkin. He aims to build custom guitars at a lower price than the big brands, whilst using high quality materials.

He has a number of his own standard body shapes, and regularly make custom finishes including one-off graphics such as those in the pictures below. He also markets a series of amplifiers under the brand Stormshadow Ampworks although I don’t know whether he does the manufacturing himself.

Here are some links to the Stormshadow website, Facebook page and YouTube channel. He is currently running a raffle for a rather nice-looking guitar on Facebook, 250 tickets at £10 each, which could be worth a punt!

Here are a few examples of his work:

A custom build with a graphic of Bela Lugosi!

Another custom top - the Skeleton's Ball! — Another custom top – the Skeleton’s Ball!

PRS Periscope Guitars #4 and #5

News from PRS is that these two guitars, for which we saw PRS pick out the woods some months ago, have just been completed. They are a pair of Tremonti models, one solid and one semi-hollow, and they are real beauties.

For more details and photos, see the related news item on the PRS Guitars website.

Spotlight on Luthiers: Waghorn Guitars

It’s Monday, so that must mean it’s time to focus on another luthier (not that I do this feature regularly on Mondays, but never mind that). This week I decided to look at Waghorn Guitars, who are based in Bristol. Tom Waghorn is the founder of the company and he works with another luthier, who he took on to address his growing waiting list.

Waghorn Guitars make acoustic, electric and bass guitars (all the instruments you need, really!) and they make a signature model for Alex Hutchings, who is quite a well-known professional guitarist from Bristol.

They make some really beautiful instruments, like the one depicted below. You can see many more photos of their guitars on their gallery pages – they have separate photo galleries for acoustic, electric and bass.

A seven-string Waghorn guitar — A seven-string Waghorn Corax guitar

PRS Periscope Guitar no. 3

PRS has just announced on its blog that Periscope guitar no. 3 has been finished. If you’ve been following my news entries, you’ll know that I’ve been watching these keenly, and it’s great to see the finished guitars.

The PRS blog entry is here. Take a look at their page for more photos, specs, and to find out where you can buy it! Spoiler: the price is around $10,700…

Spotlight on Luthiers – Organic Guitars

Another post in this series finds Organic Guitars, a luthier called Duncan Wales based in Cambridgeshire who mixes “old world luthiery and modern innovation”, notably making good use of 3D CAD software and CNC machines that many individual luthiers spurn. However he does it, he certainly makes some beautiful instruments!

Organic Guitars was founded in 2004 and seems to be quite a low-key operation, with no high-profile artists. It looks well worth a visit, though, if you’re looking for a very stylish custom guitar.

The Organic Guitars 'Artist' model — The Organic Guitars ‘Artist’ model