The origin of the SSD (Skinny Slope Dred) was an accident turned into an opportunity. As I was bending the Madagascar Rosewood sides they horrifically split so Mary stopped me just before I was about to toss the sides into the wood stove. She optimistically said why don’t you build a “skinny” version but I was reluctant thinking the bass response would be anemic. As it turned out the guitar sounded fantastic.
Several years later the owner of the first SSD brought it to a McJam which generated an order for this particular guitar. Our customer was amazed that the 3″ body depth didn’t hurt the base response but rather made it much clearer and focused. The body is made of figured African Sapele with a 1959 Sitka top. Pau Abalone inlays abound.
The MacNaught body uses a very unusual set of Cocobolo Rosewood back and double sides and a Torrefied Adirondack Red Spruce top. Our customer chose a side sound port that girds his deep faith in our Lord showing a man kneeling and praying “At The Cross”. It brings a smile to our hearts every time we see him playing this guitar in his church and I hope his guitar has initiated a few opportunities for him to be a witness of our savior Jesus Christ.
This guitar was designed for a customer’s grandson with hopes that he would one day learn to play guitar and that grandpa could pass it down to his grandson. It started out with our MacNaught body using the best set of Brazilian Rosewood that I have ever had the pleasure of building with then topped with a unique set of bear claw figured Adirondack Red Spruce top. Grandpa also chose white Mother Of Pearl top purflings and rosette which is quite beautiful and more elegantly understated than the usually colorful Pau Abalone shell. And its finally finished off with a one off Tor-Tis laser engraved pickguard to The Dominator.
Mary started the design with a unique set of Tasmanian Black Heart Sassafras back and sides which had this wonderful natural flame pattern
in the wood. It was during the fires in Australia that we built this guitar to honor and bring awareness to those friends down under who were struggling with those catastrophic losses. She wanted to use an offset side sound hole in the Alaskan Yellow Cedar top to bring the sound closer to the player without disturbing the sides with any sound port holes. Finally she asked me to shade the body to bring out the flames and my natural response was “yes dear”.
This guitar was also our prototype for our first “Re-Echo Disc”. Since the back and sides were some of the highest damping woods I’ve ever
encountered I wanted to invent a way to add more sustain to the guitar that just wasn’t possible with some more common dead sounding wood. When tap testing this wood a piece a water soaked cardboard had a more lively tap tone than this particular piece of Sassafras. So, I added a suspended spruce disc, inside the body, which acts as an additional vibrating plate. I hoped the Re-echo disc would add additional sustain and volume to the sound box. Well my experiment was a huge success and the guitar sounded fantastic and way beyond my expectations. It has sustain to the moon, faster response and increased volume. What’s not to like from a virtually dead sounding piece of wood? I have since built several more guitars with our Re-echo disc technology and all have out performed our expectations!
This is our tip of the hat to some of the great pre-war era OMs that so many players seek but only few can afford. We started with our
HighLander body of genuine Honduras Mahogany and paired that with a torrefied Adirondack Red Spruce top. The sides and back are single ply
and much thinner than todays over built guitars and the top being torrefied or baked in a special oven artificially ages the tone giving
the player that dry vintage tone that so many players love in those wonderful pre-war guitars. This model is simple in its design yet
extremely responsive because its built right and light in all the right places. This guitar weighs in at a staggering 3 pounds which you won’t find in any of the current factory reproductions. This model offers that great vintage tone, power, responsiveness and playability on day one without having to wait 80+ years.
After seeing and playing the first “Gear Head” version Doc wanted something visually similar but in a slightly larger body. He fell in
love with the size and tone of the Isaiah SDG guitar which was made from Australian Blackwood and a Cedar top. However, Doc’s wife Caitlin fell in love with a unique set of Tasmanian Tiger Myrtle back and sides so we assured them that we could satisfy both their desires by building a box within a box using Catlin’s Tiger Myrtle back and sides on the exterior with Doc’s Australian Blackwood on the interior by utilizing our own “Hollow Back” design and double sides. We were able to give Doc the tone he wanted and the visual eye candy Caitlin had fallen for plus adding lots of “Gears Gone Wild” inlays throughout.
Doc’s aggressive string attack could easily overpower the single Cedar top of the Isaiah guitar so we suggested using a Cedar “Double Top” to give him a much wider dynamic range and seemingly endless headroom. Based on his feedback I think we satisfied them both.
Mary designed the theme of this guitar around a “choker necklace” she used to wear when she was in her teens. The guitar body is our “Skinny” (3″ deep) Slope MacNaught of E.I. Rosewood, Lutz spruce top with Turquoise, green malachite, Ebony and Sycamore inlays.
