Craft
Everything in a Driskill guitar is there to make it play easier, sound better and last longer. Here's what that means in practice.
01 · Wood
It starts years before the guitar does
Quilted and flame maple gets bought raw, resawn and sanded, then set aside until the right build comes along. What looks like plain lumber turns into a stunning top once it's opened up.
Brazilian rosewood logs are cut for necks and fingerboards. Cocobolo, korina and spalted maple show up when a guitar calls for them.
02 · Necks
Stress-relieved, carbon reinforced
Necks are stress-relieved and reinforced with carbon fiber made in the shop, then fitted with a Driskill truss rod. They stay where you set them.
Frets are custom stainless steel — harder to work, but they play glassy and they don't wear out.
03 · Hardware
If it doesn't exist, machine it
I couldn't find a tremolo I'd put on one of my own guitars — everything I tried inhibited tone — so I make them: one piece of solid brass with enough mass that it gives nothing away.
The Driskill Stop Tail is a wrap-around bridge with individually adjustable saddles, radiused on every edge. Pickup rings are solid brass, cut to the exact angle of the strings so the pickups stay parallel to them.
04 · Inlay & finish
Tigers, vines and trees of life
Inlay is cut and set by hand — tigers walking down a fretboard, vines climbing a neck, a tree of life in exotic shell.
Colour goes on as non-fading, UV-stable transparent dye, one body at a time in the booth, so the figure underneath stays alive instead of being buried under paint.
