Thorn Custom Guitars and Inlay:
An Artisan Deluxe is a carved top "semi-custom" guitar. Specifications such as neck shape, fingerboard radius, and pickup configuration can be customized to suit. However, wood selection is limited and the fretboard inlays are Firesuns only. Full paua purfling is standard along with inlaid logo and inlaid truss rod cover. The standard components, such as knobs, pickup covers, and toggle tips are plastic as found on most guitars.
An Artisan Master is a full blown custom guitar. The wood choices are practically endless. Most of the plastic parts are replaced with wood, such as knobs, toggle tips, back plates and tuner buttons. Firesun inlays are standard but custom inlays are easily possible. This is the ultimate instrument for customization ...
We produce handmade vintage reproduction electric guitars from the 50's and 60's; and hand-built hand-wired tube guitar amplifiers. We also sell most of the parts used on our guitars.guitars, vintage guitars, electric guitars, custom guitars, guitar manufacturers, amps, guitar amps, amp manufacturers, guitar parts, lindy fralin pickups, tremolo blocks, callaham tremolo blocks
Nashville Guitar Company: Marty Lanham has been playing and working on musical instruments for over thirty years. In 1972, he moved his family from Northern California to Nashville to pursue his passion for banjos, guitars and music. Music City was a natural place go... "I was looking for a place to live where music was as much a part of the culture as it was to my life. It was clear to me that playing banjos and guitars, fixing and building them, was what I wanted to do with my life."
Lanham didn't know what to expect in Nashville, but knew he could always keep pushing east to his family's homeplace. His mother's large and musical family nurtured much of Marty's cultural development. His grandpa led the church choir, an uncle played mandolin and several aunts played Appalachian gospel music on piano.
But Marty's talents soon found a home at GTR (later Gruhn) Guitars. He was hired to work the repair shop by office manager Doug Green (a.k.a. "Ranger Doug" of NPR stalwarts Riders in the Sky). He worked at Gruhn's for eight years, restoring hundreds of instruments and refining his building craft. "Gruhn Guitars is still the place to go to find vintage stringed instruments" ...
Blade Guitars: Gary Levinson began repairing Guitars in 1964. Utilizing his multiple university degrees in applied and natural sciences. Levinson approaches guitar building from an analytical standpoint. Inherent resonant frequencies of woods, innovative electronics and the tonal effect of hardware designs are important factors in his concept development. Equally as important is the role of "metaphysics" - or magic. Exhaustive research goes into those exclusive components that make a great guitar feel and sound right to a player.
In 1977 he opened his workshop in Switzerland. Early in 1982 he set the groundwork for the Blade guitar line with a series of prototypes utilizing innovative pickup systems and the position-determined-profile neck. January 1987 the alliance was forged with manufacturing partners to launch the Blade programm on a worldwide scale.
By 1990 Blade had become the best selling custom high-end guitar in Europe and received endorsements from many of the world's finest players.