I’ve been so busy over the last six weeks that I decided to take a week off. Some time to relax and reflect on everything that has happened. No sooner had I started a Pioneer for a customer, I’d also signed a new artist to the LT Custom Guitars family. I feel very honoured to have the talented Emma King on board. I’m even more pleased that she loves the guitar I built for her – The ‘King T’.
Back to the drawing board…
The ‘King T’, is no regular ‘T’ type. In fact, I had to completely start again draw it out on paper first. The body is very unique, its 7/8th size with huge hollow chambers each side. I made extra large chambers, hugging very closely to the pick up cavities, the thin centre block and around the bridge. This made the already light weight one piece poplar body of the ‘King T’ even lighter. With the British walnut top & black pinstripe glued on, it weighed just over 2lbs!
I was concerned about the possible lack of bass frequencies given the weight and chambering. However, I figured that the shorter scale length of 24” would negate this effect. I did also look at both a 22 and 23.5” scale length when drawing the ‘King T’. I felt that they pushed the pick ups too close together and left a lot of wood on show towards the bottom of the guitar. To me this gave a bit of an after thought type look, which I wasn’t happy with.
Creating a contrast…
The neck on the guitar is another piece of British walnut, full of character without compromising on any structural integrity. Then to contrast that, Emma & I decided with a highly flamed sycamore fretboard. Further still i added unique 6mm walnut dots. Something I think that’s very cool about this build is that every piece of walnut on the ‘King T’ is cut from the same tree. I even made a unique surround for the neck pick up out of a piece.
The overall look of the guitar really struck a chord with Emma. Factor in the the smaller scale and body size, along with the light weight and she was blown away by the ‘King T’. It’s a guitar she can write, record, tour and even jump about on stage with. To the untrained eye it looks no different in size to a regular ’T’ type guitar, another success in my eyes.
A Guitar Fit For A King…
I had to get this guitar from a drawing to fully finished and delivered to Emma within 30 days. That was nothing short of an epic challenge. I’m used to long days, I regularly do 12 hour days in the workshop. however, a finite amount of walnut from one tree, and this time scale meant there was absolutely no room for error at any point of the ‘King T’ build. Thankfully it all went smoothly. I’m very proud of the guitar and Emma’s extremely happy with it. Even her husband Ritch loves it and recorded a thorough play through and review on youtube – which you can see here.
