Builder Shout Outs

diablo175

diablo175

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With Hamer long gone and Mike planning to hang up his tools, I thought it might be worthwhile to have a thread acknowledging the multitude of other boutique, solo/small shop options out there. To be sure there are some really talented folks out there.

I'll start-

Ted Stevenson- Montreal, Canadian builder who got his start as a guitar and amp repair man and has been building for 20 years. Made me a killer super Strat. I'd put him up there with the Tyler and Suhr in terms of quality and materials.

Attila Custom Guitars is a boutique instrument builder out of Parma/Cleveland Ohio, operated by luthier Attila Csapo. Did quite a bit of asking around before opting to go with him for my Icee-Man build. His customers are very enthusiastic and generous in their praise and accolades of his work. Even managed to make a couple of social media pals via correspondence with them. His work is rock solid! I currently have an order in for a V that promises to raise a few eyebrows. ;)  

Shane Huss: HEL - Most on here have heard of Shane's work through my posts as he has built me 4 guitars, 3 of which I still own. I am quite smitten with them despite some gnarly issues with organization and timeliness plaguing the experience. But this arguably is to expected from what is/was, essentially, a side hustle. Sadly, I don't think he's building anymore as his website and FB page haven't been updated since 2018 and last word out of State College was that his repair shop closed down and he was working for the state's environmental dept.

Funk Guitars- Mark Funk has been putting out some visually impressive, hand-cut hot rod guitars (his marketing verbiage, not mine) from his shop in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. for 16 years. I kept seeing his posts on FB and eventually snagged one of his builds. While the super Strat was excellent, great attention to detail and top notch features and materials, ultimately I flipped it as the crackle was not firing on all cylinders and I had hopes of raising funds for another, more desired build from Charvel CS. Nonetheless, his work continues to impress me and I may yet break down and order another custom build. :D  

Stevenson Std 24.jpeg

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HEL Spitfire 2.png

HEL Specter and Spitfire 1.png

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Even though I use Josh for all my builds, I must give a shout out to Greenville Pickups. Todd and his family are just fantastic people and very customer oriented. off the shelf or customer winds . 
 

 
I spoke to Will Shea and was impressed, but I went another direction…which led me to Jeff Neville at Neville Guitars. He built me a custom Strat/Tele mash-up to my specs and he hit it outta the park. Husband/wife team, necks are hand carved, all wood come from his Michigan farm. Great guy who listens and is all about quality and customer service.  I would commission another build in a NY minute.

 
diablo175 said:
With Hamer long gone and Mike planning to hang up his tools, I thought it might be worthwhile to have a thread acknowledging the multitude of other boutique, solo/small shop options out there. To be sure there are some really talented folks out there
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Is this speculation RE Mike, don’t recall any announcement…. Not too many guitars recently finished

arniez

 
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I have mentioned before Barry at Grez Guitars in California.....Assuming the things he builds are in your style. When it became apparent I would not be able to score that second (or third) Shishkov, I got a couple that I think are pretty damn good consolation prizes. And a very quick turnaround (8 weeks or so) on custom orders. 

Grez M.jpg

Grez GT.jpg

This other one may well draw some flak, but I recently stumbled onto a used LA Voce by Dean Zelinsky. Bends (if not breaks) some rules, with a few secrets under the hood, but I am impressed. Played it with some other folks for a couple hours Saturday and it went  over well. Covers a lotta the same territory as my Shishkov (Or for  that matter my Parker Mojo Fly). No, not as good, but I do like it.

DZ La Voce.jpeg

 
django49 said:
I have mentioned before Barry at Grez Guitars in California.....Assuming the things he builds are in your style. When it became apparent I would not be able to score that second (or third) Shishkov, I got a couple that I think are pretty damn good consolation prizes. And a very quick turnaround (8 weeks or so) on custom orders. 

View attachment 99561

View attachment 99562

This other one may well draw some flak, but I recently stumbled onto a used LA Voce by Dean Zelinsky. Bends (if not breaks) some rules, with a few secrets under the hood, but I am impressed. Played it with some other folks for a couple hours Saturday and it went  over well. Covers a lotta the same territory as my Shishkov (Or for  that matter my Parker Mojo Fly). No, not as good, but I do like it.

View attachment 99557
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I've been bombarded on Facebook by Dean's new company.  I'm curious.  Do you have the "neck"?  What are your thoughts?

 
ArnieZ said:
Is this speculation RE Mike, don’t recall any announcement…. Not too many guitars recently finished

arniez
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Apologies as I'm likely trafficking in hearsay but a social media or forum post in reply to someone asking about who's making a close approximation of a Hamer these days had that in it. Basically saying that Mike's got a handful of orders to fill and then he's hanging up his tool belt.

 
The Shark said:
I've been bombarded on Facebook by Dean's new company.  I'm curious.  Do you have the "neck"?  What are your thoughts?
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Jury is still out. Not sure the neck is a total game changer. But that is based on limited hours. It DOES seem to be a bit easier to move about. BUT, I suppose some of that is that it is a "faster" neck  (meaning thinner) than I usually prefer. Also, I have not changed strings yet........It does feel a bit too slinky. Probably 9s on the LP scale length.

Best thing (IF you can find one near you) would be to test drive one.

My thumb seems to be weaker (injury) than it used to be, so maybe this will end up being more comfortable.

FWIW, I also got inundated (like daily) with offers. I did have a specific model I was looking for, based upon their demos. However they never had one exactly configured that way on their site. Trying to spec one out on their site for a build order did not seem to get me there. And when I "chatted" on line about that, they never seemed to answer my question. So I did not pursue a direct purchase. A used one popped up. Not the "ideal" one I wanted. But good enough to take a risk, at barely a third of what the "ideal" tricked out one would have likely cost. So, hard to complain.

But maybe I just got someone on the other end of a chat that was just not getting it......

 
django49 said:
Jury is still out. Not sure the neck is a total game changer. But that is based on limited hours. It DOES seem to be a bit easier to move about. BUT, I suppose some of that is that it is a "faster" neck  (meaning thinner) than I usually prefer. Also, I have not changed strings yet........It does feel a bit too slinky. Probably 9s on the LP scale length.

Best thing (IF you can find one near you) would be to test drive one.

My thumb seems to be weaker (injury) than it used to be, so maybe this will end up being more comfortable.

FWIW, I also got inundated (like daily) with offers. I did have a specific model I was looking for, based upon their demos. However they never had one exactly configured that way on their site. Trying to spec one out on their site for a build order did not seem to get me there. And when I "chatted" on line about that, they never seemed to answer my question. So I did not pursue a direct purchase. A used one popped up. Not the "ideal" one I wanted. But good enough to take a risk, at barely a third of what the "ideal" tricked out one would have likely cost. So, hard to complain.

But maybe I just got someone on the other end of a chat that was just not getting it......
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I'm guessing the neck won't be the epiphany that my first Charvel was (John Nelson of the Eddie Money Band's quilted model he played on the MTV video from the Kabuki Theater, when Eddie came back from his drug and alcohol addiction).  John and I are friends to this day.  An unfinished neck was just fantastic. Our own HamStd Peter had it pass through his hands after me.  

Less wood touching my hand seems to make sense.  I agree that I should look for a used one.  It reminds me of the first time I bought a Washburn Nuno mahogany model.  Just a fantastic guitar, but I sold it.  Bought two more and neither one were near as good as the early first year one. 

My recent Shea purchases have me hunting in the weeds for really good guitars.  I wish Mike was still taking orders.  I understand the myriad reasons he's not.

Grez seems a lot like Shea.  Less than three months for a killer guitar that might cost a good bit more to buy in the future.  And God bless these guys.  They are sticking their neck's out.

Sorry to hear about your thumb.  A thinner neck is, most definitely, better for that lack of strength.  My father always said, "Getting old sucks".  Don't know your age, but we don't heal better tomorrow than we did today. 

DR  

 
The Shark said:
I'm guessing the neck won't be the epiphany that my first Charvel was (John Nelson of the Eddie Money Band's quilted model he played on the MTV video from the Kabuki Theater, when Eddie came back from his drug and alcohol addiction).  John and I are friends to this day.  An unfinished neck was just fantastic. Our own HamStd Peter had it pass through his hands after me.  

Less wood touching my hand seems to make sense.  I agree that I should look for a used one.  It reminds me of the first time I bought a Washburn Nuno mahogany model.  Just a fantastic guitar, but I sold it.  Bought two more and neither one were near as good as the early first year one. 

My recent Shea purchases have me hunting in the weeds for really good guitars.  I wish Mike was still taking orders.  I understand the myriad reasons he's not.

Grez seems a lot like Shea.  Less than three months for a killer guitar that might cost a good bit more to buy in the future.  And God bless these guys.  They are sticking their neck's out.

Sorry to hear about your thumb.  A thinner neck is, most definitely, better for that lack of strength.  My father always said, "Getting old sucks".  Don't know your age, but we don't heal better tomorrow than we did today. 

DR  
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If I was somewhat younger and still leaning towards acquiring, I would sure check out Shea. FWIW, Barry (Grez) has posted some great video/demos of some of his builds. One that I found very useful was comparing his relatively smaller guitars (Mendocino) to such as a good example of a 335 and to full archtops. He describes his builds and (IMO) shows how that makes the  smaller body sounds so much bigger than it actually is. IF that is what a person is going for (as opposed to a solid body guitar) those demos are worth checking out. 

I am NOT going to say they top my one Shishkov, quality wise. But no slouch. Somewhat different animals, but I can pretty much get to the same place with either the Shishkov or Mendocino......Long ago I had a long conversation with Mike about doing something a few steps beyond and he seemed quite enthusiastic. Of course, that was not to be. I actually chatted with Nik Huber about doing something similar, but that would have been 5 figures and a long wait.  Made no sense. The custom order Mendocino, then later the Grand Tour, substituted nicely. Nicely enough that when an older Grez archtop popped up at a fair price, that became a third.....I DO get carried away.....

grez nightingale.jpg

The La Voce does not have the same "airiness" but otherwise pretty much gives me the same voices for live play.

I am not there yet, but having a few such instruments in hand has been making me think I may not really need to keep my last  two Hamer Artists.....The Ltd Edition 25th and the Ultimate Artist. But not going there just yet......

 
Here's my two, the first is a Bunting Alice, German Spruce body, Bosnian Maple neck, Mojo Gold Foil and Bare Knuckles bridge pup, clocking in around 6 lbs.  Bunting is a small Israeli outfit, just a few folks in the shop.

iChDgjN.jpeg


O4Kspz0.jpeg


The second is a TreeTone Kensington, roasted pine body, roasted, quartersawn, flamed maple neck, Gemini P90s, coming in at a svelte sub 6 lbs.  TreeTone is a single builder, Josh Forest out of Wallingford, CT, and a really nice guy to boot.

ZmfPjG3.jpeg
tqrDdtp.jpeg


 
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The Shark said:
I'm guessing the neck won't be the epiphany that my first Charvel was (John Nelson of the Eddie Money Band's quilted model he played on the MTV video from the Kabuki Theater, when Eddie came back from his drug and alcohol addiction).  John and I are friends to this day.  An unfinished neck was just fantastic. Our own HamStd Peter had it pass through his hands after me.  

Less wood touching my hand seems to make sense.  I agree that I should look for a used one.  It reminds me of the first time I bought a Washburn Nuno mahogany model.  Just a fantastic guitar, but I sold it.  Bought two more and neither one were near as good as the early first year one. 

My recent Shea purchases have me hunting in the weeds for really good guitars.  I wish Mike was still taking orders.  I understand the myriad reasons he's not.

Grez seems a lot like Shea.  Less than three months for a killer guitar that might cost a good bit more to buy in the future.  And God bless these guys.  They are sticking their neck's out.

Sorry to hear about your thumb.  A thinner neck is, most definitely, better for that lack of strength.  My father always said, "Getting old sucks".  Don't know your age, but we don't heal better tomorrow than we did today. 

DR  
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If you want to try one (assuming the La Voce model is appealing) Guitar Center has a used one at a better price than others listed on line if you apply their current temporary 10% discount. Good for 7 more days.

 
django49 said:
If you want to try one (assuming the La Voce model is appealing) Guitar Center has a used one at a better price than others listed on line if you apply their current temporary 10% discount. Good for 7 more days.
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Thanks, but my new Shea is the only thing on my radar right now.  I'm exhibiting at the Tampa show next week and will be selling some stuff.  After that, I'll probably go back on the prowl.

 
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