Collector Series Guitars
Of the many guitars to come out of my shop, only a handful qualify for Collector Series status. These guitars represent the culmination of my craft to date, and are the ones I'm personally most proud of. Though all my guitars are essentially custom guitars, these Collector Series guitars stand out in terms of a unified design aesthetic combined with special features and detailing not found on Bashkin Guitars' standard models.African Blackwood OO-12 Fret
This OO-12 fret model guitar is an homage to my love of black and white photography. I used materials that were either black or white, or gradients of gray between these to two opposites. I tried to balance all the components (black, white, gray) to make a visual yin and yang guitar. The headstock overlay, rosette and endgraft were cut from a White Oak burl I found in my Father's backyard in western North Carolina. I then segmented the burl and torched it in hot sand to give the shading effect. The inlays in the rosette and fret board are bone. The top is heavily-silked creamy white German spruce, and the back and sides are dark, dense African Blackwood. The binding and purflings are Macassar ebony with holly and maple veneers. The neck is highly figured birds-eye maple.
This guitar also features frets that are canted a few degrees towards the player’s shoulder (this is not a new idea in lutherie, just new to me). The fretboard is asymmetrical in cross-section, with the bass side being thicker than the treble side. The intended effect is for the wrist to engage the frets in a more neutral position and therefore reduce fatigue. Though the effect is subtle, I believe it may be significant for longer sessions as well as over the long-term.