79 – 201104 Z3 – SOLD – Zachary Handcrafted Guitars | Bass| Pedals | Strings

Inspiration

We have all read brochures from virtually every guitar company and they always give these clichés about using the "highest quality wood" and even how they reject most of the wood they come across and that they pick only their best tone woods and on and on goes the bullshit. Who do they thing they are fooling with all that nonsense. Well they are fooling you the stupid guitar consumer. Don't kid yourselves. These commercial manufacturers spend tons of money on advertising, they are in bed with the guitar magazines and they know how stupid you are. In fact what they do is learn how to speak your language. If they do that they can get you to buy their stuff. They want to fool all those overweight balding and retiring baby boomers into spending a few thousand dollars on pieces of furniture. After all, they know how you think and what you want to hear.

This is not the guitar you think it is. Take a close look at it. Did you notice, its made entirely of "junk wood". There is no way that I will ever reject any piece of wood and if you are smart you will know that there is no such thing as "tone wood" because all wood is tone wood. I bought the top wood from a midsize bass manufacturer who bought all this partially figured maple that Gibson had rejected. It turns out that he did not want it either and I was too stupid not to have purchased all of his stock. I bought everything I could fit into an already over-packed van. The pieces I did not buy I hear was cut up into smaller pieces to be used as parts of multi-piece bass bodies. What a waste.So here is all this "rejected" wood . A top which as you can see is not uniform or consistent and is full of imperfections. When I got all this wood it was already all marked up with a pen everywhere there was flaw. Let me tell you there were lots of flaws and consequently lots of pen marks. You will also notice that it is discolored in many places and that there are small black marks on it. Definitely not for the eBay collector crowd or the boutique stores. No $8000 price tag on this baby.

I found the Walnut for the back by listening one Sunday afternoon to local radio when they had the weekly Bargain Finder show. One guy called up and said he had an aluminum fishing boat for sale as well as this piece of very nice Walnut that he ripped out of a 100 year old house that he renovated. I went down to find an ugly piece of wood. Which was quite thick but had many surface cracks and was dirty. I bought that piece of Walnut and made it look nice. I used it on several previous guitar backs already.

On top of all this and to the horror of all Boutique guitar store owners there is knot in the back of the body and also a knot, can you believe it, in the neck. I started picking at the knot in the neck and I found the wood was rotten there. Then more I picked at it, the more the rotten wood fell out and before long there was a hole there. I always use quarter-sawn necks for stability, so its great wood but there was just this hole where the knot used to be. Well, all I had to do is fill it with a very hard substance and it was fixed. There is no way I would reject any of this wood. I am sure by this time the boutique store crowd is cringing.

The theme for this guitar was to make it totally natural, as if you were walking in the forest and cut some wood, and gave it to me and I made a guitar from this wood. Or as if this guitar was actually growing in the forest as a plant.

I just let things happen the way they do. I never know what a guitar will turn out to be like. Inspiration just comes to me while I am working on it. I suppose this is not even what the customer had ordered, not even close in fact He wanted a 25" scale, ebony board, glued neck joint and gold hardware (this guitar would not have been right with gold hardware). I even threw in two extra dusty frets at no charge. They call the very high frets, the dusty frets, because no one ever plays up there except for Bobby Simcox. His frets are not dusty.

So here you have it, definitely not a guitar you will find at a guitar boutique. Maybe in the trash box of a guitar boutique.
So remember this guitar the next time you read an ad or a brochure from any guitar company. If you ever wonder where all the inferior wood goes that they reject to make their ultra high quality and heavenly sounding guitars, now you know, it comes to me. Contact them and tell them to just send me their junk wood and I will turn it into a low quality guitar.

Comments and Reviews

Nice "low-quality" guitar, man! 😉
Every piece of wood on there is beautiful. I hate AAAAAAAAAA+ evenly figured wood. It's boring. This wood is interesting. Nicely "unmatched" maple booktop, love those little spots and uneven tigerstripes. Great Walnut piece for the back (love the black knothole with all the figures around it, the music goes in there, straight from the player's gut). No dots on the fingerboard. Nice and smooth. Nice piece of Pau Ferro. Milky brown. Your customer should like that. I read Pau Ferro has about the same "tonal qualities" as Ebony. If he's a first time customer, he might need some reassuring about the knothole in the neck though. I know that would scare the shit out of me if I didn't know you and it were my first Z. If he doesn't like that guitar, that means he's a yellow-bellied lily-livered coward, and lacks the balls to play a real guitar. 26" scale, so more space than on the 25", smooth playing, interesting wood (nobody in the world will ever have the same, which is great), what more could he possibly want? David (Belgium)

Man. I really wish the buyer of that guitar was in queens. Two things I want to check out 26 frets. 26" scale so that those last 2 frets are maybe even big enough to actually play. Haha. It's funny about the wood etc. I bet this thing just resonates like a damn harp. Just seeing that big ass fret board covered with fat frets and no inlays makes me think about playing. I have been posting links to the pics of my Korina (on your site) on various music and guitar related sites to see how people react. As radical as your take on things is your pics are by far the most revealing of any pics on any guitar makers site. Cheers bro -Eli (NYC)

Hi Alex, you have done it again. 201104 so Beautiful its perfect, there are no imperfection there is so much going on within 201104 the more you look, the more you see infinity. Rickey (UK) PS, Let them Cringe

Hi Alex
If 201104 is made from "junk" wood, then please make my new baby out of scrap. She is so much more beautiful for the rich variety of her top. It screams "real wood". And I love that walnut back - the knot right in the middle just sets off the grain pattern to perfection.

That's one of the things specifically that attracted me to Gaia 010902, yet by the usual definition, spalted maple is "junk" wood as it's damaged by fungal decay. It's funny to think I've had her nearly two years. She's so much part of me, yet I still get the shivers every time I play her.

I don't know if she's improving with age, or I'm just getting more out of her, but the longer I have her, the more remarkable I feel she is.

I'm glad your doing more 26-fret necks. That's the one thing I miss on Gaia, as I now keep her permanently tuned down a whole step and it would be nice to have that top E fret. Ludwik (UK)

Alex, I have decided that a 9 month or so wait doesn't fit into my current need for a next guitar. I operate intuitively in matters like this so I'll keep an eye on your site for a possibly available guitar that speaks to me or obtain something otherwise.I saw your most recent Z3 and as usual, it appears to be a wonderful guitar. I was quite surprised (even given your wildly creative nature) that you chose to utilize a major neck defect filled with what I speculate was epoxy (or similar). Being an ex-cabinetmaker/woodworker I can only guess that over time this repair may fail or at least create on-going need to re-repair due to the dissimilar natures of wood to the fill material you used. On a neck this issue poses undeniable/universal user concern. Just my $00.02 for whatever its worth as I think your are going to get raked over the coals over that one my friend. Kirk

The last two axes are WAY COOL, Bro!!! I LOVE the knot hole in the neck!!! Bobby Simcox

Hey Alex long time no talk. I just had to drop you a note and tell you that 201104 is absolutely stellar! Just a killer combination. Congrats!
Too bad I can't afford one just like it. Totally awesome! Will Rawlings

I am a new guitar player, having picked up the guitar to combat my mid-life crisis and I am irritated already by the hype of the big guitar stores. Even the smaller manufacturers have begun to partially mass produce their "handcrafted guitars". I came across your web site while hunting for something striking, different, or at least well made. Congratulations to you on your vision, dedication to your art, your adherence to principle. Your "junk" wood Z3 201104 is truly beautiful. Please keep up your good work. Sincerely, David Scott (future Zachary guitar owner??)

Hey Alex, I just wanted to tell you that the "junk wood" guitar (201104) that you made for me is the most wonderful thing my fingers have ever touched! In addition to being stunningly beautiful, It has the truest, most musical tone of any guitar I have ever played. Even simple open chords send tingles up my spine. Your designs also make it by far, the most comfortable guitar i've ever played. You have made an instrument that is so far above the level of quality I've been conditioned to expect, that I am still dumbstruck. Major guitar manufacturers cannot produce a guitar of this quality because they won't invest the time, skill and artistry that you have, so be proud of your work. Thank you so much for such wonderful quality work, and whatever happens, keep doing this because you certainly have a gift for it. Who knows, may be I can talk you into trying another hollowbody (like 180200) in the not-too-distant future.
Thanks again! Matt Kelly (owner)