Ash Customworks

Adrian Hamilton from Ash Customworks has a couple of interesting ideas about building Semi-acoustic guitars, which are not exactly the usual way. Annaliesa was built with a new combination of old-school archtop techniques and modern solid-body machining, using real solid wood and as little glue as possible. If you take a cedar top and make it thick, its simply a solid body like any other. However, if you selectively carve it, you start to move back towards acoustic territory, but you can control the strength and feedback properties to have the best of both worlds.

Ash Customworks passion is the art and craft of hand made guitars. Whether you need a custom built investment instrument, one of the standard Ash models, pickups, hardware or a kitset to finish yourself, you've come to the right place! Not only that, but Ash Customworks can perform any repairs, setups, refinishing and modification work on any type of electric or acoustic guitar.

www.ashcustomworks.com

Annaliesa

“Annaliesa is named after my Great Aunt Annaliese."

Darcy Perry had been playing Ibanez and Gibson guitars for over 20 years when he approached Adrian Hamilton from Ash Customworks to build a tribute to his great aunt. Darcy's personal touches on his custom built signature model include the gold pearl diamond inlays, the hand carved semi-hollow body with no soundholes and of course, her name.

The meaning of the name:

Variant of Anneliese: Derived from a compound of Anna (grace) and Liesa, which is a German diminutive of Elizabeth (God is bountiful).

"Of course the meaning for me is a sentimental one. Annaliese was a wonderful woman. She died in 2005. Her sister, my grandmother, died a month later. Coincidently, Grace and Lisa are the middle names of my two girls.”

Body Eastern USA Flame maple back/sides/neck. Canadian Western Red Cedar carved top
Fingerboard Ebony FB with gold pearl diamond inlays
Binding maple binding & pickup surrounds.
Hardware Gold Gotoh Hardware
Pickups DiMarzio Virtual PAF pickups
Controls Two volume, one tone, three-way switch
Finish Honey Burst

Without giving away too many of Adrian's trade secrets, here is a montage of the building process. Note the solid centre block, Bubinga neck stripe and fine attention to detail on both the binding and finish.