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Gushing on NGD has a bipolar affect on the guitar community. We have a select few who have been lucky enough to be able to pony up, those who dream of the day that when they can afford their own NGD, and then we have the jaded and sarcastic to make up the remainder of the bunch . I'll leave it up to your imagination, but if it was a Pie Chart you could envision what the shares would look like. So i'll do my best to lay this out as honest as I can. This is for the ones that are sitting on the fence, with a dream of one day owning a Shishkov. I ordered the "Working Man's Guitar", it was a dream that was thrown out as a possible "HFC Run" that never happened. Why, because when you get a bunch of people who can ask for anything, that is exactly what they do. Only they don't ask for the same thing, and can't settle for less. After receiving #0070, I knew what I wanted to order and Team Shishkov was up to the challenge. The process is what is special about doing a custom order, but its not for the faint of heart. You can get anything you ask for, but if you don't like what you get, it is on you. So keeping it simple, I wanted a mahogany Guitar, P90/Humbucker Routes, Hardtail through the body (no sustain block). The pickups needed to be clear with punch, and the bridge bucker needed to have a strong split. I wanted to use one guitar all night, even if the other guitar player switched from playing Tele's to a LP and I needed to change tones. Simple right? I always kept one thing in mind, leave Mike and Josh enough room to work and let the guitar become what I wanted instead of making them work in a box. First change came with the wood, I get an email with a request to change the wood to a piece that nobody had claimed yet. I gave it a big thumbs up! Josh wanted to do a 12 Screw pickup design and after some discussion (sometimes i'm worrisome) I green lighted that as well. Since I left the bridge open ended, Mike looked around and came up with the Hannes Bridge. I wanted the good attributes of the Sustainblock without the inherent brightness that comes along with it. So after we discussed it (because I just liked to hear Mike explain it too me) we continued. Ah, the tuners, so the Hannes looked so modern that the guitar needed modern tuners. The Schaller Divinci tuners were beautiful, modern with a touch of vintage. Ok the color I stole from someone else Shishkov, but sometimes other people have great ideas too. The final result, is a guitar that is light, punches like Mike Tyson and can hold a note longer than Celine Dion. To Mike and Team Shishkov I know you put the same amount of love into every guitar, but sometimes things just happen. Sometimes they just come together in a way that cannot be explained, but i'll try. I have owned some of the most infamous Hamers to come through the HFC. Maybe not the most coveted, but the ones that were known tone machines that had that extra 10%. The first being the 77 Sunburst that when through so many hands here, along with BCR Greg's Personal Hamer Vector(#72), and Greg's Personal BCR JR. This guitar stands toe to toe with all of them, the pickups are perfect, the neck is perfect ,and it reminds me of those guitars. The harmonics are crazy good and so is the sustain. I wasn't even playing that loud, but the guitar would hold a note like you were stepping on a sustainer pedal. This is my Forever Guitar, and I don't take that lightly.