The Order Process

Ordering

All my orders start with direct contact from you. Most the guitars I have made start life as an Instagram DM. So the first step in ordering a guitar is to write me an idea for what you want. You can write me over on Insta, Facebook, or Contact me directly.

Then we exchange messages, discussing what you want, what ideas I have, what woods, pickups, body style, neck shape, fretboard radius, special requests, etc until we eventually agree on a full build, with more or less all the details decided, and a price. This period has taken as little as 3 minutes and as long as about a year depending on the customer, and the build.

When this is all decided I send you an invoice for the guitars deposit via Paypal. If you don’t have paypal you can pay directly by card here.

Once the deposit is received I order all the materials that I don’t already have in stock. Then we start the build phase of your guitar.

Building

I like to start the build with all the parts and materials already assembled, so I can account for the bridge and pickup heights whilst setting the neck depth and angle. It also feels good to lay out all the hardware and pickup covers on the wood blanks to get an idea of the feel of the build.

When assessing the wood blanks set aside for the build I like to place exciting parts of the grain in key locations on the body and neck. For example, if there is a beautiful grain pattern in a certain part of the neck blank I will try to place the headstock around it, or if there is a visually busy part of the grain on a part of the body blank I will try to put it in a place of the body that won’t have anything covering it up (like on the arm comfort cut). Experience has given me the ability to look at a piece of wood and see the finished guitar in it.

When I have marked out which parts of the body and neck blanks I will be using I mark out the shapes with a pencil and cut them out! This is always an exciting day, as it’s the first real “woodwork” on the build, and turning a piece of wood into something guitar shaped is really inspiring.

One of the first things I like to do with each build is wind the pickups. I see the pickups and the pickup configuration as the central decision of most builds, so getting them done first gives the rest of the build process clarity. I wind all my own pickups based on the customers desires and specs. You can tell my your favourite old guitar sound, your desired pickup resistance, even just some vague terms like “beefy, thick, glassy high end” and I can wind you what you want. Find out more about my pickup winding here

Then depending on the complexity of the build I spend from a few weeks to a few months working on your guitar. I’m not going to go into detail on each aspect of the build process as it would be a book!

I stay in contact with the customer during the build process, updating them on how it’s going, asking their opinion on things for the build (deciding the pickup placement for example) and answering any questions they have along the way.

Finishing and Receiving the Guitar

Eventually I send a message to the customer telling them the guitar is done!

When the guitar is completed I send an invoice for the outstanding amount on the build. It is normally a few weeks after the guitar is completed before I can ship. This is mainly due to giving the customer time to collect the rest of the funds for the guitar. However the guitar getting a few weeks to hang in my workshop gives it “settling in time” which is no bad thing!

I ship all my guitars in hard cases and I try to exclusively use UPS for deliveries. In my experience they are the best. I ship worldwide.