Contact
Click on pictures for higher-quality images.
Holoflash 2012
The PRS-style body
and neck were purchased on Ebay. The neck is mahogany with a
rosewood fretboard, 24.75 inch scale. The body is mahogany capped
with maple. The pickups are Seymour Duncan P-Rails with Triple-Shot mounts,
providing the choice of series humbucking, parallel humbucking, soapbar
single-coil, and rail single-coil. The bridge is a Gotah
Wilkinson Tremolo, and the tuners are Planet Waves auto-trim locking
tuners. There are coaxial tone and volume controls for each
pickup, and a 3-position selector switch.
I originally attempted a 3-tone dragonburst (yellow-green-blue) hand-rubbed finish, but that didn't go well at all, so I sanded it out. I next mixed a gorgeous red-violet stain and applied that. Alas, I could never get a satisfactory finish with this either; some spots on the maple took up the stain really hard, while other areas practically repelled it. And the grain pattern of the maple was pretty pedestrian in the first place. So I sanded all that out again, sprayed on a few layers of metallic navy blue, then tediously ironed-on some holoflash film, like they used on the original Kramers in the 1980s. The headstock initials were printed using a calligraphic pen and navy ink. On top of that went 25 coats of wipe-on polyurethane. This produces a nice rainbow effect that changes as light hits it from different angles; these photos don't really do it justice.
The guitar is quite heavy, which I rather like, and given the multiple pickup variations available, it has a broad assortment of sounds. The series humbucking sound is fat, but not quite a bright as a Les Paul. The soapbar setting is nicely punchy on the bridge pickup, and just bright enough not to sound muddy on the neck pickup. The rail single coil has some bite; usable, but not a standout. The real gem here is the parallel humbuckers. While lower in output, they are bright and jangly, yet dirty up nicely when you crank up the gain. And you get a bit of the Strat "in-between" vibe on each pickup by itself. You're tempted to play for hours just to fiddle with the various sounds. The versatility of having both series and parallel humbucking sounds is so cool I'll probably try to do this on any future humbucking model.
I originally attempted a 3-tone dragonburst (yellow-green-blue) hand-rubbed finish, but that didn't go well at all, so I sanded it out. I next mixed a gorgeous red-violet stain and applied that. Alas, I could never get a satisfactory finish with this either; some spots on the maple took up the stain really hard, while other areas practically repelled it. And the grain pattern of the maple was pretty pedestrian in the first place. So I sanded all that out again, sprayed on a few layers of metallic navy blue, then tediously ironed-on some holoflash film, like they used on the original Kramers in the 1980s. The headstock initials were printed using a calligraphic pen and navy ink. On top of that went 25 coats of wipe-on polyurethane. This produces a nice rainbow effect that changes as light hits it from different angles; these photos don't really do it justice.
The guitar is quite heavy, which I rather like, and given the multiple pickup variations available, it has a broad assortment of sounds. The series humbucking sound is fat, but not quite a bright as a Les Paul. The soapbar setting is nicely punchy on the bridge pickup, and just bright enough not to sound muddy on the neck pickup. The rail single coil has some bite; usable, but not a standout. The real gem here is the parallel humbuckers. While lower in output, they are bright and jangly, yet dirty up nicely when you crank up the gain. And you get a bit of the Strat "in-between" vibe on each pickup by itself. You're tempted to play for hours just to fiddle with the various sounds. The versatility of having both series and parallel humbucking sounds is so cool I'll probably try to do this on any future humbucking model.
