I was gonna just wait until the guitar arrived, but with all the other production pics being posted, I may as well throw up the pic of my Gadow Custom Hollow that is due in at any time now. I'll stick up a completed photo when I get it as well. Enjoy. --Tom
That looks like spalted maple to me, and an EXTREMELY nice piece! Thanks for not holding out on us with the pics. Kev
thats sweet i like the alternate sided fret markers.. a killer flamed spalt top too which Model is that?? It looks like a flat top or is it carve top? (hard to tell in that picture...)
Yep, nice spalt top, eh? It's the Custom Hollow model. Generally this model is made with a fluted carve around the perimeter, but because of the spalted wood, which is very tough to work with, we opted to not do this to mine. I think it looks great without it, much simpler look to it, which I like. The alternate fret markers were one of Gadow's standard offerings, from what I understand. You can order them though with no inlays, only one on the 12th, zig-zag like this, regular down the center, etc. No charge change for fretboard choice either, and I'm partial to maple, so the birdseye was an easy choice. This will have a Graphtech GHOST piezo and 13-pin system installed in it as well, like Gomez's that he posted a month or two ago. Ryan (Gadow) and Chris Douglas are a joy to work with too. Very cool folks. They really seem to take a lot of pride in their work and product. These guitars have Fralin pups, tonepros wraparound bridges and Gotoh tuners standard. And you can't beat the prices for handmade USA axes (at least not that I know of at this level of quality). --Tom
This guitar is turning out great,Tom......I've got the hardware on it and I'm coming down the home stretch in assembly....can't wait to get it in your hands!
actually i think i like the flat top look better... sorry to be a pain with the questions but how thick is the top wood?? is it a thinner piece since they didn't need to arch it or is it just the same thickness as the normal arch top just un-carved.. ( my apologies if thats confusing sounding)
Ryan can probably answer this better for me if he checks back in. It looks pretty thick in the pics (thicker than the one on my Carvin Holdsworth .... www.ece.cmu.edu/~tms/fatboy) but they put pretty thin tops on those. I think it may be a bit thinner than the regular Custom Hollow thickness. I don't believe the tops on these are "arched" in general, the sides are carved. Go to the front page of the Gadow site: www.rrgadowguitars.com and you'll see an orangeburst custom hollow where you can see the thickness profile of the normal top and the carve. You can compare that to what you can see in the pic on mine (as best as you can) for somewhat of a comparison. I suspect Ryan was concerned about the spalted wood chipping or splitting at the ends if carved due to the fairly unstable nature of the spalted wood. Perhaps Ryan or some of the other luthiers on here who have worked with spalts can shed some more light on things. I've worked on some wood over the years, but never anything this fancy, and never a spalt! --Tom
The top on this particular guitar is 3/8" thick...we didn't want to do any carving due to the "spongyness" of spalt...our carve on the top of our customs are quite complex, and we felt we couldn't get a good sanding job due to the consistency of spalt....and we are actually going to be offering a new model of our custom hollow with the same style of top, its going to be the new "performer" series.
Whoa, Tom. That is spectacular!!!!! I'm sure it will be a fantastic addition to your lineup. (Next to that spalted Fatboy....YOW!) Congrats....hang in there till you get it!!! Terry
Sure: My Custom Hollow w/ Graph Tech Ghost Option: on display at namm At Ryan's shop My Jazz: In Case another
