NGD: Early Buscarino.. Any wood experts here?

[SonomaWino]

Completely random one here. Apparently a custom one-off from the early 80s built by John Buscarino. Solid Brazialian Rosewood neck..... beautiful looking and playing guitar. Traded for it today...

I have an email out to him if he can shed any light on the body (if, in fact, he remembers building it at all!). The back is gorgeous- any ideas on what type of wood this looks like to you? Thanks! (not the best pictures in the world... I'll get better ones up later)

 

[superrock]

i guess burl maple top on walnut...
but that is beside the point...

that is sweet!!! what a ride! congrats! pm me when the honeymoon's over and i will gladly accept your castoff...

 

[vortexxxx]

I would guess redwood burl.

 

[catpeople]

What did you trade for that? A kidney?

 

[pcauchi]

my goodness!

Looks like walnut on back.

Jeez what a slab of wood.

Damn.

 

[QQQ]

Beautiful guitar.

 

[SonomaWino]

Thanks for the insights on the wood type.. and yes, I'm now missing a kidney (hell, we have two, right?)

A few pictures added from today with some better lighting.... It's really interesting to me to have a solid neck with no truss rod (never seen that before), but the neck is dead perfect.

 

[superrock]

+1 redwood burl with new pics. what a stunner. again,

 

[cjp54]

I could be wrong but I don't think it's a one piece neck. It looks like there's a separate fretboard. Maybe even ebony, it looks darker than the headstock and back of neck. When looking just above the nut towards the headstock it looks like there's a line where you'd expect it to be if there was a separate fretboard. I'd pull the neck and check to see it there is in fact a truss rod that's adjustable from the butt end of the neck like an old school Fender.

One awesome looking guitar though!

 

[SonomaWino]

I could be wrong but I don't think it's a one piece neck. It looks like there's a separate fretboard. Maybe even ebony, it looks darker than the headstock and back of neck. When looking just above the nut towards the headstock it looks like there's a line where you'd expect it to be if there was a separate fretboard. I'd pull the neck and check to see it there is in fact a truss rod that's adjustable from the butt end of the neck like an old school Fender.

One awesome looking guitar though!

CJP - You're right on the fretboard... Looks like ebony to me, also. I meant the neck itself is solid. First thing I did last night was change the strings and pull the neck to take a peak and no truss rod (confirming what the previous owner said).

 

[Kalalau Hiker]

hey - glad you finally got it!
does look like an ebony board, and maple burl, or maybe even bubinga top.
wonder what it sounds like.
Did you get in touch w John yet?

 

[SonomaWino]

hey - glad you finally got it!
does look like an ebony board, and maple burl, or maybe even bubinga top.
wonder what it sounds like.
Did you get in touch w John yet?

I did.. received a nice email from him yesterday. He does remember it being from around 1986. He says it was a maple burl (you're right!) top with a 2-piece alder body.. finished with a nitro lacquer. The neck was either Brazilian Rosewood or Bocote.

He says it was definitely a one-off that later became the same style as his Mira model (but with a different headstock shape, scale length, and his two-bolt joint design). With limited tools, he says it he made all the wood parts from scratch.. "a handmade one off"