A good few years ago now I was part of a guitar community called SixStringBliss; the community was driven by a Podcast by the same name. I think the Podcast last 'broadcast' in 2014 and the community quickly became very quite.
There are rumors the Podcast may be back in the not too distant future...I digress.
I was looking for a special guitar around the time I started listening to the Podcast. It was going to be a treat to myself from a little inheritance from my father's passing. I also wanted something that to celebrate the arrival of my first daughter.
I spent quite a lot of time searching online for Gibson Les Paul style guitars but couldn't find anything that felt to be good value. I think a Gibson Les Paul was around £1400 back then (2010) but quality seemed to be poor. I couldn't find and alternative that felt special enough.
I came across Steve Benford through the SixStringBliss podcast. Steve was a frequent contributor to the Podcast and the associated albums. Steve teaches guitar and was also a source of music theory knowledge on the forum. I got in touch with Steve about building me a guitar and the rest as they say is history.
Working with Steve was fantastic. It all started off with a list of desires in terms of shape, materials and hardware. The latter I took advice from Steve. I was very specific in that I wanted a mahogany type body with a bird eye maple top. The desire for maple came from the dashboard I had on a Jaguar car I was lucky enough to own for a short while.
The pickups were handmade by Searcy String Works (Clint Searcy), another frequent contributor to both the Podcast and online Forum.
The outcome was in my opinion spectacular! (Unlike my kitchen floor).
The guitar doesn't get used half as much as it should these days but I hope to get the opportunity to fix that very soon. A new job means that I have a little more spare time these days; well should, things are a little busy at the moment as we plan to move house.
Looking forward to setting up Flabby Toad Studios V2 if we make it to our new house!