Custom-made Kelly finally done!!

[slash-ed]

Indeed... the jarrah was maybe a quarter the price of a piece of normal flame maple? Not even the highly flamed stuff.

From memory this dude also uses Fiji kauri, and various other closer to home woods on his creations.

[JerEvil]

Man that's beautiful!

[Coyote]

Looks Great. I love the head stock.

[Budman68]

What a beautiful instrument! It looks like someone really did a fantastic job and congrats to you on a great piece -

[slash-ed]

Thanks again! Finally took delivery of it 3 days ago, but due to busy-ness at uni I've yet to put it through anything bigger than my Microcube But I'm definitely loving it so far!! I'll have a better chance to review it over the weekend!

[åron]

Going through the gallery on Adrian's MySpace. The guy has great taste. Definitely a star in the making.

[slash-ed]

Snapped a few pics of my own... Finally But haven't uploaded that many yet, the connection here is pretty useless at the moment. Proper review on the weekend!

[VitaminG]

sweet, man. Let us know how that jarrah sounds! I have a barbecue setting I'm thinking of turning into a guitar.....

[slash-ed]

I guess I owe you guys a review!

Well... Might as well turn it into a bit of an after the fact build diary for anyone who's interested in having a look.

Basically I wanted a guitar modelled after a Jackson KE2, but of course when I finally had enough cash for a second hand one, none came up for sale for a few months... And naturally after I put down my deposit for this one, a few came up for sale!! In black though, I think it was... not really my style.

So the basic specs were copied over - neck through, MOP inlays, ebony board. But I love the look of a multi piece / wood neckthrough, so I went with a nice flame maple / bubinga centre block.



I've always thought the look of a KE2T with it's flat top with no bevels was "sharper" looking somehow, but the "T" always killed it for me, so I specified that on mine. The jarrah all over the place to be honest happened by accident - I was originally thinking of the something exotic, figured koa maybe, or spalted maple, both of which were pretty costly. By chance, Adrian (the luthier) picked up a piece of "bees wing" figured jarrah, which I thought could work.

Here's a pic of the wings getting their jarrah cap clamped on.



I had originally wanted abalone inlays, but in the end it had to be MOP - laminated abalone inlays / purfling are available even on mid level imports these days, but MOP is still the best stuff for me! Can't beat the awesome look of real pearl.

Here's the neckthrough block getting two extra bubinga stringers glued on:



Continuing the theme of jarrah, we had thought to stick jarrah pickup surrounds on:


But in the end I decided that all chrome hardware would contrast with the dark brown overall look better. The chrome bezels it ended up with are very cool, they're about half the height of a normal one, kind of a "low-profile" pickup surround if you will. Quite unusual.

Anyway, after much waiting it was finally assembled!




Eventually it got its first stain, an amber/blonde satin finish for the back:



And an ambery brown stain for the top:



I didn't like the first colour of the back, it was a kinda "meh" looking shade of amber, not vintagey looking enough. And the top wasn't to my liking either, so I got him to make it a bit darker, and add a very subtle bursting around the edges.

And the final product, which we've seen numerous times already in this thread!



Review time:

Playability and setup is, as expected, top notch. Super low action, but nary a buzz to be heard. Neck profile is nice and thin, but not quite as flat feeling as an Ibanez Wizard. The wood binding was a great idea - it looks cool and unusual, and pretty much feels like there IS no binding! Very smooth and ridiculously easy to play. The satin lacquer on the back helps with this too.

Fit and finish is great. I don't see any flaws in the finish, and the edges were taped during the top gloss coat to give a subtle "natural binding look". Not really obvious from far away, but you can clearly see the difference in texture close up. Jarrah is a really cool wood! Little mineral streaks and things make for a pretty different wood from the conventional guitar building stuff.

Inlays are awesome - I think the headstock logo is laser cut from Agoya or fresh water pearl. Also something different from the norm used to good effect. MOP inlays do their job perfectly - if I look close enough I can see where and how much filler was used, but of course I'm just being anal and going over it with a fine toothed comb.

TZ / AN pickup combo is working wonders for the guitar. In conjunction with the 5-way switch, I can get a wealth of tonal variety just from the guitar alone, which is something I've never really played around with much in the past. The split sounds are amazing, very stratty. Full humbucker sounds are fat and full, but not muddy at all, very well defined without too much excess noise.

I can't really comment on the tonal properties of the jarrah, the closest thing I've had to this spec without the jarrah I guess would be a Model 6, but to be honest I've forgotten what that sounded like now I'd say that it may tighten things up overall just a little bit? Cos the last time I had a Tonezone in a PGM30 it sounded a bit looser than it does now, I think.

The Gotoh floyd seems to be holding tune very well. It feels solid. I don't abuse my floyd that much, but it got sent down between islands, came out of the box exactly in tune, and I checked with a tuner today while I was playing - every string right on the money.

Okay... that's all I can think of! Hell I'm sure no one will even read through that whole thing!! Hope someone enjoys it.

[VitaminG]

cool, man. Glad to hear it plays & sounds as great as it looks

[bibz]

Very nice gutair again dude, sounds like a quality instrument that'll last forever! My old man has an aussie made 'Noyce' guitar from 78 that it reminds me of (laminate/stain options) and that thing is solid and toneful to this day, enjoy yours!

[Budman68]

Excellent, once again, and yes, I enjoyed/appreciated the pics as well as the info.

Great job and a beautiful instrument!

[demeyes]

Wow thats a nice guitar, its really classy looking. I wouldn't have thought the headstock shape would suit it but it works fine. Seems like you got yourself a sweet axe.

[SEEGERMANY]

i think the headstock looks nice in that configuration; cool guitar!

sully

+1 Badassed geeter! A Keeper!

[slash-ed]

Thanks again guys, glad to see that everyone seems to like it as much as I do!