Born Custom Guitars OG-Drop solidbody electric guitar with Pistachio top

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Of course, here at Guitarz we don't just focus on weird and wonderful guitar finds on the auction sites. We're guitar aficionados and besides all the weird and wonderful guitars, vintage instruments, beautiful - or even occasionally horrendous - guitars, we are very keen to celebrate contemporary guitar design, and we have a particular fondness for the "little guy", i.e. the small guitar companies out there who are keeping the spirit of experimentation and guitar design alive. The guitar pictured here is a case in point, an experimentation in the use of an alternative and rather unusual tonewood. I'll allow Campbell Davis of Born Custom Guitars to explain:

We (Born Custom Guitars) are a new and small company located in Colorado. We're all big fans (all three of us!) of your blog, and we wanted to share a guitar that we recently completed that we feel is pretty unique. As a company, we love traditional tone woods, but we also really like experimenting with and promoting alternative tone woods. In either case, we use only salvaged, reclaimed, or sustainably sourced woods.

The guitar seen in the attached photos and video is our "OG-Drop" model. This particular guitar sports a Port Orford Cedar body and neck, Granadillo fretboard, and a Pistachio top…that's right, Pistachio! Pistachio trees are grown commercially for their nuts, but are only commercially productive for 50-80 years. After that point, they are usually chipped/scrapped, despite the fact that they can often live up to 200 years. The Pistachio top on this guitar was salvaged from a farm in California before it was scrapped. Pistachio is very heavy, hard, and dense and pairs very well with the lightweight and airy Port Orford Cedar (POC). The POC neck and body originate from a southern Oregon forest that was almost completely destroyed by a 500,000 acre fire a little more than a decade ago. The fire left many dead but harvestable trees. POC is really lightweight but incredibly straight grained and stable and we've found it to be an excellent alternative for Maple necks.

Thanks to the guys at Born Custom Guitars for showing us this beauty. I personally think it looks quite stunning, and as the video demonstrates it sounds sweet too!

G L Wilson

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