Model1

This guitar was a collaboration with the absolutely mind-boggling artist Mathscaper. They use fractal equations to carve 3D representations of Fractals in wood. The multiple colored layers that they carve through truly bring these equations to live by highlighting the natural beauty of the math. To make the art viable for use on a guitar, it was encapsulated in epoxy. One of the unexpected, but appreciated, consequences of this is how the light plays through the epoxy to cast shadows on the valleys of the piece! Just stunning.

This is an extremely old instrument, despite only just being posted in 2021, for a number of reasons. I built about 80% of this guitar about 15 years ago while working in the Myka Guitars shop. The combination of the claro walnut, bloodwood, African blackwood, and light (Engelmann) spruce at the time was my dream combination and I was building this guitar as my personal instrument. However, as they say with fantasies, they cease you be your fantasies once you attain them.

This was an interesting project. It was commissioned by a local company who wanted a showpiece in the company colors, featuring their logo, for the CEO to keep around the office and play. I was given a lot of freedom in making the design choices as long as the colors and logo were right. We ended up using their logo to create the soundhole and rosette, with the name moving up the fretboard. However, since the logo needed to move into the territory of the neck, we had to get creative!

This archtop was especially fun for me as it was a platform for prototyping and innovation since it was going to a friend and I had almost total control over the specs. I was really excited to be able to experiment with new bracing ideas, oval hole, to finalize my bolt-on version of my all-access acoustic heel, and utilize my 3D printer and carbon fiber to get some details that otherwise wouldn't have been possible.

This is the sister build to the East Indian Rosewood and Fiddleback Ash M1T Thinline. If you're building one for a customer... might as well build a second one in different wood! This one with an especially cool Holly burl top that was ecologically sourced from a reclaimed wood company based in Manassas, VA.

Thankfully, with the amount of fantastic rosewood on this instrument, the customer lives in the US! This guitar was started prior to the CITES restrictions on transactions in rosewood crossing international borders, but completed afterwards. But when you have a guitar that looks like this, who needs to travel?!
This guitar has a lot of really special stuff going on and it was a pleasure to work with the owner on it. To name of a few of my favorite details:

Every year the University of Maryland holds a hackathon called Bitcamp. One of the sponsors approached us about crafting an instrument to use as a prize for the 2016 competition.

The Variax circuitry has always intrigued us and we finally got around to building a guitar with it. This instrument is the ultimate studio beast! The classical T-style woods and electronics give the player access to one of the most recorded guitar sounds of all time. Throw that together with the ability to dial in, on an independent circuit and output, anything from a Les Paul to a Dobro or SItar and the possibilities are endless. Last but not least the comfort of the neck can't be beat.

Sometimes you just want to go over the top. This guitar was our way of scratching that itch. Between the 5A spalted quilt maple top, the ridiculous radial purfling, the rich dark east Indian rosewood neck, and the just crazy electronics this guitar screams 'over the top' from the rooftops. A special shoutout to Scott Walker guitars for the fantastic boost/buffer circuit as well as his online schematic creation software that was invaluable in figuring out how to make this complex wiring a reality.

I've never been one for building to the designs of others. Therefore, after a few acoustics of a more traditional form I was drawn to create something more "me." I was looking for the sweet sound of an OM-style instrument as over the years I've found that they best complement the timbre as well as volume of my voice. However, I was determined to have my acoustics play as fantastically as my electrics; including the upper-fret-access that I achieve through a heavily sculpted heel.