Veils Posted March 1, 2023 Share Posted March 1, 2023 Tomorrow I'll be taking delivery of my second guitar from Mr Tom Gray. If you're not familiar with his work, definitely go and take a look because his work is absolutely stunning. I had a CS strat which I let go and pretty quickly regretted, so I sourced the very same pickups (Ancho Poblano's - this wasn't easy!) and sent them to him, then asked him to replicate the finish but give it one of his stunning flamed necks. The result is pretty special, he added a video demo of my guitar on his youtube channel a few days ago. If you're in the market for a custom build, I cannot recommend Tom enough. Lovely guy and incredibly talented at what he does. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soledad Posted March 2, 2023 Share Posted March 2, 2023 Impressive. Like the quality of woods - neck maple and super-dark board. And what must be a nice thin nitro finish - I'm fairly convinced the modern poly finishes (which are variously rather thick) act as a damper on the body and knock some ring off the sound. This guitar sounds very alive. Nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crusoe Posted March 2, 2023 Share Posted March 2, 2023 Looks and sounds great. I may be wrong, but I think I've seen Justin Sandercoe playing one of these. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crusoe Posted March 2, 2023 Share Posted March 2, 2023 2 minutes ago, Crusoe said: Looks and sounds great. I may be wrong, but I think I've seen Justin Sandercoe playing one of these. Just had a look on the Gray Guitars website and yup, there's a video of Justin playing one. There's also one of Chris Buck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randythoades Posted March 2, 2023 Share Posted March 2, 2023 Looks totally fantastic. But I do find it a little odd though why such amazing craftsmen 'custom build' high quality guitars but still stick to the tried and trusted designs from 70 years ago rather than their own styles. I can appreciate why a customer might want the best that the design can offer, but there must be plenty of custom shop models that do that (although I haven't ever had the money available to splash out on such so haven't looked in detail). As a fully fledged craftsman, does it feel a little like selling your soul to build these rather than a new design to show off your skills...? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veils Posted March 7, 2023 Author Share Posted March 7, 2023 On 02/03/2023 at 11:34, randythoades said: Looks totally fantastic. But I do find it a little odd though why such amazing craftsmen 'custom build' high quality guitars but still stick to the tried and trusted designs from 70 years ago rather than their own styles. I can appreciate why a customer might want the best that the design can offer, but there must be plenty of custom shop models that do that (although I haven't ever had the money available to splash out on such so haven't looked in detail). As a fully fledged craftsman, does it feel a little like selling your soul to build these rather than a new design to show off your skills...? I understand the sentiment even if I don't agree with it. I had Tom make this guitar because I was so impressed with the first I bought from him and I asked him to recreate and put his spin on a CS strat I had and mistakenly shifted on. For less money than the CS strat cost, I have something which looks even better, has an absolutely stunning neck (the likes of which Fender just cannot live up to) and has some personal touches. Fender just don't offer anything of this quality at this pricepoint, I think that's part of the appeal. I would add that I have the exact same Fender pickups in this (Ancho Poblano) which were in my CS, so this really is a tribute to a Fender guitar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veils Posted March 7, 2023 Author Share Posted March 7, 2023 On 02/03/2023 at 09:27, Crusoe said: Just had a look on the Gray Guitars website and yup, there's a video of Justin playing one. There's also one of Chris Buck. Those guys make it sing! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soledad Posted March 8, 2023 Share Posted March 8, 2023 Anyone watch 'That's my Jam'? Caught a glimpse of guitar player - looked to me like he was playing a Gray. The roasted maple and headstock shape looked like it to me. One super-hot house band they have there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
