The Commission

commission made and specification agreed; a blues guitar:

Project folgore design - seen here left

• Black korina body and neck

• Maple cap

• Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard

• Monty's PAF replicas

• Hipshot Open Classic tuners

• Schaller Signum bridge (as on this Folgore)

The Neck

Here is the neck in progress and it is made from select quarter sawn black korina picked for stiffness and tone. We reinforce our necks with carbon rods and dual action truss rods. Necks are always worked on our special jig to ensure straightness and mitigate headstock deflection. The Folgore uses Evo gold fretwork for longer life and improved  playability and a brass end fret to give more space between the pickups 

The Body

For this guitar a select figured one piece black Korina (left) is topped with a book matched figured maple carved top. The body is to be heavily sculptured and semi hollow. The neck is set through so every string bearing component sits on the neck which is sandwiched in the body (see next image). All parts become one whole and improve resonant feedback....acoustically the guitar is louder and feels more alive

Tone matters

Maximising connectivity between components is critical to delivering good tone and getting great resonance. Sourcing the best components is part of this. The Signum bridge by Schaller used on this guitar is a locking bridge making for improved tone transfer. At the other string end we are using Hipshot's superb open classic tuners which are built to high tolerances. Monty's humbuckers are lauded as some of the best PAF's available. All this adds up to a great guitar.

Completing the brief

Here is the Folgore after the process of hand carving the top using traditional luthiers tools. The guitar is at the stage where it is sanded down and will go into the spray shop. All components connected to the strings are locked to the set through neck to ensure maximum tone transfer. The Monty's pickups will be hard mounted to the body to make sure they vibrate at the same resonance as the strings and hardware.