Bird is the word
Sometimes you are lucky enough to meet someone as crazy about Guitars as you, and that was when I met Jeroen. Another guitar geek, who is on the same page as I am when it comes to creating something new and combining existing designs we already like. After one brainstorm session we both knew we were on the start of not only one Guitar but we had enough ideas to create a whole serie.
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StonerBird
Jeroen’s first idea was to rebuild a 60s classic, with the overall look quite the same. Yet, the longer you looked at the guitar the more subtle differences you will notice. We replaced the volumes, tones and switch, relocated the output, placed two coil split humbuckers and made te body string thru with a bolt on neck.
Jeroen wanted some references to his favorite cars: the Dodge Challenger and Plymouth Barracuda. So I added some decals behind the bridge, customised the toggleswitch plate and painted the body in the original Avocado Gold color plymouth, used in '74. After spraying two racing stripes on the middle part, it was time to assemble and take it for a test ride.
- Scale: 24.75’’
- Body: Mahogany
- Neck: Mahogany, Ebony fretboard
- D shape 12’’ Radius
- Frets: 22 Medium Jumbo, Dunlop 6150
- Binding cream, black side dots
- Bone: nut
- Tuners: Vintage Klussen banjo-style, nickel.
- Bridge: Schaller STM-roller bridge nickel
- Pick-ups: Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates-set.
- 2 x volume (push/pull coil split), 2 x tone, 3-way switch)
- Color j6-Avocado Gold (1974 Plymouth)
- Pickguard: 1 layer black, Stonerbird-decall
NazcaBird
When Jeroen came to me with the idea of the StonerBird he already had such a clear image of how it would look like, that there was not much room for me left to tweak on the design. But with the second guitar it was totally different, he wanted to use the same neck-specs, higher middle section and headstock design and came with the Nazca theme and this new color what Cadillac called 'Persian Sand'. Beside those ingredients, I had a blank canvas to start drawing. After sending some ideas back and forth, I'm very proud of the body contour and new elements we put in this guitar: the 2 layered pickguard who follows the raised middle part, the 2 German carves that flow into a straight carve and the Nazca bird behind the bridge sprayed as a ghost layer. You don't see at a first glance, only when you look at it from the right perspective – just like original drawings in the Nazca desert Jeroen gave me as theme for this guitar.
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When building the guitar almost came to an end, Jeroen called me with a new idea. As a big fan of the sound of Billy Gibbons he was looking for the Bixonic Expandora 2000R but couldn't find it. He did find Werner from Zwirries Effects, who wanted to make a clone. And asked me to customise the stompbox so it would match the guitar I was building. I had a little paint left and printed a decal that looked like the pickguard, let the Bird fly In/Out of the pedal. When Jeroen came with the name FandangoFuzz, the pedal was ready to get assembled by Werner.
- Scale: 24.75’’
- Body: Mahogany
- Neck: Mahogany, Ebony fretboard
- D shape 12’’ Radius
- Frets: 22 Medium Jumbo, Dunlop 6150
- Binding cream, black side dots
- Bone: nut
- Tuners: Vintage Klussen banjo-style, nickel.
- Bridge: Schaller STM-roller bridge nickel
- Bigsby B5
- Pick-ups: Gibson
- 2 x volume (push/pull coil split), 2 x tone, 3-way switch)
- Color: Cadillac Persian Sand
- Pickguard: 3 layer moto cream
IncaBird
When we start to build the second Bird we almost knew right away it wouldn't be the last one, it had to become a series of 3. As with the Nazca we were focussing on the design, we wanted to put more effort on the range of sound options on the third one, the IncaBird. Jeroen came with the suggestion of the Seymour Duncan P90 stacks wich you could switch from serie to paralell. So you have a noise cancelled p90 sound wich you could switch with the push/pull volume to series and you have a humbucker style sound.
All 3 pickups have there own volume knob but also a on/off switch. So at any point you could throw in or out the pickup that you want. You could play all 3 off them at the same time, or if you switch the middle one off you can use the 3-way toggle switch as on a normal Les Paul. If that isn't enough options, it also has a master tone, and Kingtone switch with 5 different tone settings and one bypass.
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For the design we used the early '60s lawsuit between Fender and Gibson as inspiration. Using the best components of the three models to make our own version with a Stradlin twist and more important the blueprint of the previous Birds: the same neck profile, scale and radius, raised centerblock and Schaller's STM-roller bridge. With this time a Vibromate installed so everytime switching strings you can choose between a hardtail or bigsby version of this... what should i say, versatile model...
- Scale: 24.75’’
- Body: Cederella Mahogany
- Neck: Mahogany,
Ebony fretboard
- D shape 12’’ Radius
- Frets: 22 Medium Jumbo,
Dunlop 6150
- Binding cream, side dots
- Bone: nut
- Tuners: Vintage Klussen
banjo-style
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- Pick-ups: Seymour Duncan
P90 stacks
- 3 x volume
(push/pull serie/parralel)
- 1 x tone
- 3-way switch, 3 on/off switches
- Kingtone switch
- Color: Incasilver
- Pickguard: 3 layer tortoise
- Bridge: Schaller STM-roller
- Bigsby B5/ Vibromate
