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atlas guitars, atlas custom guitars, atlas hand made guitars,
atlas custom hand made guitars, atlas elegant, atlas hand built guitar, atlas
custom built guitars, atlas special order.
Updated Friday May 16th 2008
The Luthier is the much respected and talented
MR RINTR, one of the best at his craft at
Atlas Handmade Custom Guitars
Ever wondered how a top luthier makes a custom built guitar ?
We'll show you how a stunning special order takes shape from start to finish.
It all begins with selecting the best quality woods, in this
case solid Mahogany is chosen for the body and a carefully selected block of
grade 5a Maple to produce excellent tone with an exquisite quilt grain. The
Maple below is quite exceptional and later you will see how the staining process
makes the grain look simply incredible.
Despite the fact that we handle some of the best custom
guitars available from the likes of Gibson, PRS, Fender etc there is no
substitute for a hand-made guitar and every one has it's own unique feel that
just cannot be replicated by a factory build. You do of course have to pick the
right luthier and we have given commissions to such talented names as Manson and
Tom Paul as an example, but over the years the build quality of far Eastern and
Asian guitars has become synonymous with both expertise and value for money.
Unfortunately there are, as always, manufacturers and scam artists that copy
well known brands that are sold as the genuine article but are simply cheap
reproductions that are no more than a shadow of the quality they try to emulate
so you have to be careful. Cheap rubbish abounds everywhere. That said, there
are those that have been producing instruments of the highest quality for far
longer than even the well known and trusted manufacturers albeit mostly violins,
cello's etc. It is one of these top class and talented luthiers that we
approached with our order to see just how good they were and later in this
article we will be putting the finished guitar through it's paces both in terms
of build quality and of course playability. From the previous guitars we have
handled from this luthier our expectations are certainly high !
The body has to be hand chiselled, carved and routed for
precise neck fitment and the pick-up cavities need to be hollowed etc. A time
consuming process that is far more difficult than it looks and great skill is
required when it comes to fitting a perfect Maple cap. The process is shown
below with the actual guitar featured in the photo's as it takes shape.
After many hours of delicate craftsmanship it's time for the
neck to be constructed. We specified a Dragon inlay instead of the normal fret
markers, a painstaking and highly skilled task to say the least. We also asked
for a top quality ebony fret board which isn't the easiest material to work with
as due to the unique natural hardness it chips very easily when inlays and
fret-wire are added. Below you will see two necks, the luthier himself is such a
perfectionist that when he wasn't happy with the hue and colour tone of the
first one, which was discarded, he made an entirely new one taking many hours.
The result is the lower one which has richer and more distinct colour. Try
finding a big name factory that will do that !
Next came the colour tint and lacquer finish. Slowly the tint
is added a layer at a time and having specified a Black Cherry the colour had to
be specially ordered. Gradually the tint is worked into the grain and the sheer
quality of the Maple quilt starts to bring the body alive, turning the wood from
the initial pale pink colour into the specified Black cherry ready to have the
layers of top lacquer added.
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