Sometimes this guitar comes to me when I am asleep and lay dreaming. It floats me up and takes me to visit Jimi Hendrix and Michael Hedges. Then I wake up. (sigh). 

The Dixon Sustainer Acoustic Full Frontal perspective. My black beauty I picked up for $20 bucks. This guitar had one of the most perfect necks I have ever come across and I picked it up for cheap. Whoa baby! I feel an experiment in tone modification comin' on! 

A rather boring shot of the back of the Dixon Sustainer guitar.  

Dixon Sustainer Acoustic. The sustainer pickups work as an electro-magnet which allows a musician to sustain a note or a chord for as long as they please. Infinite sustain! Imagine the possiblities when employing a two-handed playing technique. I had to use extra caution when routing for the bridge pickup as it had to be placed (inconveniently) right over the "X-brace" of the guitars top. Heard but not seen: EMG under the saddle transducer pickup.

A nice sideview perspective of the sustainer circuit controls. One switch by the heel of the neck turns the sustainer on and off, the other controls the mode of the sustainer. You can sustain the original note (the fundamental) or the harmonic of the note. In the middle position you can start with the fundamental and let it disipate into the harmonic. The other controls on the side are volume, tone and pickup selector switch.  

M&M Takamine Acoustic. Full frontal Yum Yum! Once briefly considered for the guitar role in "Chocolat" starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche,(Johnny Depp actually played guitar in three scenes, he is from Kentucky you know...) but Ms. Binoche felt like it clashed with her hair colour or something... Ah so close, and yet, still so far.

M&M Takamine Acoustic. Closeup of body.

M&M Takamine Acoustic. Melts in your ears and hands - but not in your mouth! Tonefully delicious! (not.)

M&M Takamine Acoustic. Closeup of bridge and pickguard.

M&M Takamine. Closeup of bridge and "pickguard". The "pickguard" is showing some little signs of wear but after 7 years I am impressed that the candy and its coating has held up this long. Check out the "Fung-shwe" mis-matching of string pegs on the bridge. That's art!

M&M Takamine Acoustic. Closeup of headstock.

M&M Takamine Acoustic. Closeup of the assymetrical (emphasis on "ass") tuner configuration. A conglomeration of various tuners over the years. Note the vintage shrunken tuner on the "B" string.

Washburn "Brunette" close up of the "Stevens Extended Cutaway". This was such a great idea - complete access all the way up the neck and into the body. I do not know why the stopped production of this instrument. "KIll the beast, the beast must die!" - B-movie actor Richard Steele from the movie "The Monster Guitar From Planet Q".  

Washburn "Brunette" Headstock. Slightly burnt but none worse for the wear. 

Washburn "Brunette" backside. I had to remove the back of the guitar's body to remove and modify the bracing. The strat style backplate was added in case repair work was ever needed on the electronics. The entire cavity of the guitar is coated with a sheilding paint that is no longer available on the market (I think it caused cancer in lab animals or for people to become involved in politics or something horrible like that...) An interesting phenomenon I discovered while working on this guitar was that the top vibrated different notes (frequencies) in different areas of the top. To help defeat feedback I turned the guitar up real loud and let it feedback while tracing my fingers lightly over the top to feel where the vibrations had gone out of control. I then marked this area under the top and added varying amounts of "envirotex", a two-part epoxy mixture to deaden these "hot spots". This guitar sounds like a million bucks! Imagine a guitar that is so clean sounding it hurts your teeth but add a little distortion to it and it will peel your face off. Ah the perfect blend of Hannibal Lectur and Eric Johnson! If I could only keep one guitar from my arsenal of happy mutants this would probably be the one. Affectionately nicknamed "The Beast" by my roadcrew this guitar weighs in at a svelt 15 pounds! This is probably why I am built like Arnold Schwarzenegger (not).

Washburn "Brunette" A really good shot of the burn plate and "torchered" headstock. 

Washburn "Brunette" Upclose of humbuckers and tremolo. Notice how I cut away the original bridge to make room for the new!  

Washburn "Brunette" closeup of back of burnt headstock. The "burn plate" was located on the bass side of the headstock and was made of a piece of metal shelving and two alligator clips. There was an air gap between the burn plate and the headstock so the damage seen is actually much less than it would appear - primarily smoke damage. Please do not attempt this, it is dangerous and I did get burned from time to time. Ouch! 

Washburn "Brunette" upclose of headstock "Burn-Plate". For a cheap thrill in concert I would attach a peice of cloth to the headstock, pour lighter fluid on it and then catch it on fire. Very entertaining but in retro-spect in light of the Great White Club fire tragedy, a very stupid thing to do. It was still fun though. Ah stupidity is blissfulness! 

Washburn "Brunette" close-up of Tremolo.