ACTION, FIT & FINISH

This 24-stainless-steel-fret work-of-art boasts a thin (0.63 inches
thick) ‘wizard’ maple neck that is a beauty to play and particularly if you
dislike those thick baseball necks. The fit into the neck pocket is superb and
pure precision. After the neck was developed, Stephen sealed and sanded the wood, followed by a light coat of lacquer then
wet sanding up to a 1500 grit paper. The final step was a thin coat of lemon
oil. The end result is a silky neck without any sticking, no matter how clammy
one’s palm becomes.

The action is undoubtedly the best I have experienced, as least compared
to any of my stock ‘high-end’ guitars from top manufacturers. This may be
expected when having a guitar hand-made with care, but this guitar plays like
butter – smooth and silky – and that is due to a combination of the ebony
fingerboard, the large amount of shell inlay, and the steel
frets.

The quality
of the body’s paint is far more obvious in person, and it exceeds the standards
of any guitar manufacture. It was painted by an award-winning car restoration
and detailing company, Rest In Peace Low Rider Club (www.RIPCC.com), which company was featured several times in
Low Rider magazine. Painted in a stunning metallic French Roast (think of
adding a splash of cream to a cup of rich coffee to give it a coppery
appearance), its sparkle makes it obvious that there is far more depth to its
character. The paint was finished with two heavy coats of polyurethane (each
coat wet sanded then polished) to give the instrument further depth. The
interesting thing about metallic fleck paint is that in different lighting it
emits different shadings or intensities of the color. In good lighting it
resembles a bright shiny penny, but in dim lighting it appears more dark
caramel.





The
mirrored pickguard’s vine inlay was laser-cut and a gold Mylar underlay was
added to give more pizzazz and luster to the overall shading, as well as
compliment the gold etching on the
pickups.

Internal Electronics
An Oak Grisby Superswitch was used to provide
the following pickup settings.
1. neck pickup
2. neck + center pickup
3. center pickup
4.
center + bridge pickup
5. bridge pickup
The other electronic feature added was a Radio
Frequency Identification Device (RFID) from www.snagg.com; a well hidden (within the wood of the body) micro-chip for
purposes of theft deterrence and asset recovery, in the event that it is stolen.
With this one-of-a-kind hand-made instrument, the RFID was a no-brainer as a
very inexpensive add-on.
Bridge System
Initially I was thinking of using an Edge tremolo system, since it
is standard fare with many Ibanez guitars. Owning an Ibanez JS2400, I found the
Edge system fairly reliable and stable, until I broke a string and the snapping
reaction caused some grief in getting it back to proper setup. Because of that,
and the luthier’s own ‘stability’ issues when working with the Edge, we decided
to duplicate what was used on my first custom guitar, Schaller’s version of the
Floyd Rose (with locking nut), which Stephen Casper believes is the best
sounding and most stable tremolo available, and particularly after he makes his
upgrade (with a solid brass block under the trem system, which also improves
attacking tone and sustain). I had to concur, since I’m able to use the whammy
on my original Casper guitar far more aggressively than any other I’ve used, and
it stays remarkably in-tune for
longer.