Stunning, Shockingly Beautiful!
Sleek. Sexy. Polished..
Hewn out of single block of 6061 T6 aircraft aluminum, it is polished and polished some more and then chromed to spectacularly gleam and shine, totally celebrating the exceptional qualities of metal. Chromed guitars that make use of the surprisingly beautiful sustaining qualities of this metal that produces an amazing diverse and robust sound.
Our guitars are sweet, brash, noisy, cool, unique and rebellious, like the first electric guitar, like a Harley or a Shelby something definitely making a statement sitting still, something defining a class of it’s own. These guitars brim full with that astounding beautiful stuff….. that stuff that just moves us so. When you pick this guitar up, it is like your ego is being charged. You feel different, wired, thrilled, exhilarated and you smile a big damn smile that just won't come off your face.
This is what it is like when you pick the guitar up, this is what happens.Our guitars are not yet another re-interpretation in wood or plastic but rather something with soothing curves and sinful cuts whose chromed luminescence sizzles and shimmers as only metal can.
Our guitars come with a polishing cloth and everyone, everyone! that picks up the guitar asks for the cloth as well. Sometimes with words but mostly with grunts and gestures, like “ Come on give it, give it to me”. And when they have the cloth in their hand, they smile and they start to gently polish the smooth bright curvy chrome work and a faraway look comes into their eyes…and they just keep smiling and polishing and smiling and polishing....and...smiling and polishing.
And sometime later that same day, when the polishing is done, they play the guitar and the sound, the sound that can be created from this instrument is incredible. Strong, full and rich yet able to whirl up into a remarkable harmonious screams and now the grin is even bigger wider and they start to shake their heads as they laugh out loud. Wow…
Now there are a couple of things that have come together to make the sound so, exceptional. One expected and then one not expected. TV (Tom ) Jones hand crafts our pick ups and he is the best there is, so we knew that there is going to be amazing sound ability from the pickups art and technology.
The second part, the unexpected part is how spectacular the sustain is. There had been a myth that the sound of an aluminum bodied guitar was muddy, but here with our medium this just not the case. There is a sustain that is clear and long and long.
So picture this, the “acousticability” of an electric guitar, unplugged is 0 and a great acoustic guitar is 10, ours would come in at 6. Our guitar is loud enough and sweet enough that you can sing to it un-amplified, just the guitar. The science is that sound travels slightly faster in aluminum than in steel and it is immensely more efficient in terms of energy than wood, so the sound that is not radiated immediately bounces back and forth within the aluminum until it decays. The decay time is enough longer than wood so that it fills out the sound.
Here is some interesting stuff about what we use, aluminum. There is some great precedents for the sound, the acousticability that we speak of. Violins, cellos, double basses have in the past been made out of aluminum…Really!!!
Where did our guitars come from?
Well, we don’t just like guitars, we love, love guitars!!! We love playing them, we love owning them, we love the look, the feel, the culture, the whole thing. We sat down with that love for guitars tossed in an equal dose of love for metal and chrome and noise and said," hey.. You know what, with all this, we can build something spectacular, something that is just jaw dropping, something wild and beautiful, something that you have to have, have to hold, something that you can look at in your hands and feel, changed, something that surpasses the best girlfriend you ever had" and this is the result.
This is how we make them…
The Look...
Alex and Brian designers extraordinaire, smitten guitar players and totally familiar with designing in metal and especially designing aluminum, intertwine the beauty of form with the beauty of function. They are the initial interpretation, the first step of what we seek...
The Beast...
Then a block of 6061 T6 aircraft aluminum is machined to the basic form of the guitar. Now, Alex and Brian's design is shaped, curved, coaxed from metal by the uber-skilled attention of Patrick and exceptional team with their shaping and smoothing machines. He has the skilled care and attention of a Swiss precision instrument maker, cause that is what he is.
Then that shaped piece of metal is given to Bob Baker, “the Shiny Maker” and further shaped and smoothed till it is perfectly smooth and then it is buffed for 6 hours. 6 hours that makes the surface of the guitar so so incredibly smooth that you can see your reflection in it. Then that smooth smooth metal is chromed. Now we want to point out, that Bob loves chrome, like loves chrome and his love, his adoring work makes the chromed surface of our guitars so pure, so bright, so shiny, so beautiful that light totally digs dancing and dazzling off of it.The Beauty...
And it gets better........
Tom, the designer of TV Jones pickups, “ the best on the planet” now fits his magic into polished masterpiece. He has designed, as with everything else about this guitar, something unique. It is like a TV Classic but using blades instead of pole pieces that provide a larger magnetized surface area and that results in a tone that has the Classic's beautiful clarity but now has a bold and full broadband punch and this is all underneath a smooth smooth chromed top.
And then that gets even better................
Paul, whose sage guitar technical wizardry is known throughout the world of elite guitars players takes what Alex and Brian and Patrick and Bob and Tom’s skill have done and makes it exceptional. Paul doesn’t just piece it together but crafts together the set up, the tone, the angles, the feel, the playability with skill and understanding that simply makes this instrument .....exceptional.
Who are the guys that build this guitar, Alex ,Brian Patrick, Bob, Tom, Paul ?
Alex and Brian, skillful industrial designers, who love guitars. Did we say that already? who design the models in 3D CAD programs, allowing us to experiment and perfect the guitars in a virtual world. They apply our desires for absolutely beauty with the technical requirements of the guitar, all with an understanding of the realm of unique possibilities in machining metal. They are successful is industrial design, designing many products like telephones, sports watches and surgical pencils, stuff like that.
Patrick Schiess, Focus Manufacturing, and his team specialize in the making metal play.. their expertise is exceptional and expansive, they know this medium well, building high end mountain bikes, critical parts for airplanes and intricate and important components of medical equipment.
Bob Baker, “Mr Shiny Bright Bob”, when you look at this guitar you will see a depth and luminosity in the chrome that is amazing, breath taking. Bob made it so. He has been making the parts for show motorcycles shimmer for 20 years. The secret to making chrome shine like no other is in the polishing… and that is what he knows and that is what you benefit from.
Tom Jones, TV Jones Pickups, his clients are Brian Setzer, Billy Gibbons, Rusty Anderson, Rev Horton Heat, The Legendary Shack Shakers, Chris Cheney of the Living End, The White Stripes, Elliot Easton, John Fogerty, Joe Perry, The Gore Gore Girls, Dave Alvin, T-Bone Burnett, Samantha Phillips, Joe Walsh, Glen Frey, Don Felder, Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx, Michael Anthony, Kevin Cronin, Johnette Napolitano, Exene Cervenka, John Doe, Tony Gilkyson, Freedy Johnston, Ron Eschete, Back Street Boys, The Wallflowers, Jimmy Vavino, Doyle Dykes and many others use his expertise in pick-up to make their guitars exceptional.
Paul Iverson technical design and final assembly. He has the confidence Sarah McLachlan, Brad Whitford (Aerosmith), Chad Kroeger (Nickleback) and Jimmy Page, David Gilmour ( Pink Floyd), Edge to make their guitars exceptional and he builds yours as well. Your guitar is finally assembled by Paul.
for more information contact phil@liquidmetalguitars.com