Kevin Deane Guitars - Ireland

I suppose one of the things I'm (in)famous for on this blog is trawling eBay for weird and wonderful guitars, but of course eBay isn't my one and only source. I found Kevin Deane Guitars over on MySpace and I was mightily impressed with what I saw.

Kevin has come up with some amazing designs, some of which are based on band logos. You should see the guitars he has made for a-ha and The Corrs - very intricate!

His most recently finished project is the Metallica guitar pictured here. The design of the guitar is based on the original Metallica logo which appears on the "Kill Em All" album. Kevin noticed that the shape of the logo wasn't too far away from a Flying V.

The wood used for the body is Maple ply. Kevin explains that the use of ply adds extra strength to the unusual shape and that it is also very dense in structure with no voids. (I'm reminded of the Abba "star" guitar - its creator Goram Malmberg told me that it was built from ply so the the edge of the horns would not break).

Kevin explains that this guitar is the prototpye, and that he plans to build three more: "One will stay here in my collection and two will go to other places in the world... I'm not sure where or how yet, but I'm hoping it will be places that Metallica fans can see them, play them, or use them!"

Let's hope that Metallica themselves get to see his work. I'm sure we'd all love to hear what they think of Kevin's work.

Kevin is now working on a Metallica Ninja logo bass, the design of which looks fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished item.

(Photo used with permission).