Apart from my 'standard' ranges there are certain Custom instruments that have become almost standard as I have been asked to make them so often. Here are a few of them.

Left is the ASAP Guitar Bouzouki (a friend calls it the Bizarre). It is based on the small bodied ASAP steel string guitar with a 650mm scale, spruce or cedar top and the usual choices of back and side wood. The extra internal volume and face area gives better bass and mids than is normal with a small body bouzouki. The Highlander pickup gives wonderful flat response. Standard ball end strings are used in the pin bridge. It really works!

This one is the ASAP Solid Nylon String. It has a mahogany body with a glued in classic style neck. The pickup system is a specially modified Headway built into the rosewood tie-on bridge which gives a very realistic acoustic nylon sound through PA or acoustic amp. Controls are bass and treble active gain (you do not need mid boost with nylon strings) and volume. The thin, chambered body allows use in very high volume situations and also suits being worn on a strap.

Below is a steel string version where the customer has requested a Schaller Golden 50 pickup at the neck as well as a Highlander in the bridge. Both pickups have separate volume controls and the outputs are separate (through a special stereo socket that Highlander made for me) so that you can rout each pickup to a different channel or amp. When I built this I had fun setting the magnetic signal up like Metallica and the Highlander to be a sweet, sparkly, clean acoustic then controlling the output with the volume controls. Can't imagine a situation where you might need this combination of sounds though!

These strange looking objects are Bastands in 4 and 5 string versions. The Bastand idea came about because a customer wanted a stand mounted, 34" scale EUB with the sound of a double bass and a fretless electric bass. Other people liked this concept and the Bastand was developed. So you have a fretless fingerboard on an electric length neck that has a profile nearer that of a double bass. The body is minimal with mixable Highlander piezo and Kent Armstrong magnetic pickup systems and a three band active EQ. The package (Bastand and stand) fits into an electric guitar sized flitecase.

The JP Standard is semi solid bodied electric guitar. The bound body has a back of mahogany (with tone chambers) topped with a carved top of bookmatched exotic (in this case figured yellow birch). The slim fast neck is a multi-laminate of rock and flamed maples. Humbucking pickups are wired through a five way slide switch. The pickups used are Schaller G50s which tonally compliment this style of body. The sound is on the rocky side of mellow but very versatile. The idea for this instrument came from Jon-Petter Westerlund of PSS Norway. Thanks J-P.

This is where I admit to making some models, similar to other guitars, in the past. Generally completely over the top versions for completely over the top people!

There are more pictures at Gallery of Instruments.