Myrtle Top S Series

Oh yes, the continuation of the “S” Series guitars. What started off as, “Hey, lets build five of the same guitar. That’ll be easy!” Has continued into a loooong drawn out journey of, “Mmmm, what to do with this guitar?” Every two to three years or so. I’m not complaining or anything, it’s just what it is.

To be exact, this is number four out of the five; only one more left!

I was always a bit stuck on choosing hardware for this guitar. The Myrtle top had this “greyness” to it that, to me, called for darker hardware choices, but I really don’t like black hardware. Chrome and gold were too bright, nickle maybe. And when it came to the pickgaurd, I wanted the material, again, to be dark, but not black.

Sometimes if you wait long enough, assuming of course you have the time to wait, the manufacturers of the world solve your problems for you. In this case it was with Gotoh’s development of the finish choice, “Cosmo Black”. This was the solution to my problem, not all of my problems, but, that’s another story….

When it came to choosing a material for the pickgaurd, the choice became pretty clear. The neck is a five piece Mahogany/Prupleheart neck, so why not use Purpleheart for the pickgaurd? Add that element to the front of the guitar. It worked out quite nicely.

When I joined the Myrtle, oh so many years ago, there was a small but noticeable gap towards the butt end of the guitar. It didn’t go through all the way or anything, but I noticed it, and I’m pretty sure anyone else out there would have noticed it as well. So what do you do when there is a defect in your wood? Put an inlay over it! And continuing with the “dark” theme of the guitar, what better choice of material to use but black mother of pearl. Being a big fan of both the band Tool and the artist Alex Grey, I thought using their often used “spiritual eye” design would be fun. A couple drawings later, some shell and wood dust, and bit of epoxy, we have ourselves a nice and simple custom inlay.

Here is the breakdown of all of it’s bits and pieces.

-Chambered Alder body

-Myrtle top

-Five piece Mahogany/Purpleheart set neck

-Ebony fretboard with a 16″ radius and 22 medium/jumbo frets

-Gotoh wrap around bridge

-Gotoh locking tuners

-Seymour Duncan Alternative 8 bridge pickup and a S.D. Jazz neck pickup

-Bone nut

-Schaller strap locks

-Tung oil finish

-And a Mono Vertigo case.