Description of Guitar:

The body of this one is walnut, sawed out of a walnut tree that was planted in 1911 and died in 2000.  The top of the guitar is sawed out of the graft at the base of the tree where the black walnut rootstock merged with the English walnut tree.  Bookmatch sawed walnut with vertical grain, curly redwood core

The first priority was the sound and playability, then ease of adjusting to the players style and finally-make it pretty.

Another priority is to keep our environment healthy – all of the wood used in the bodies was recycled from trees that died.

The power to run the shop comes from a creek, and returns to the river all on our own land.

Hardware overview:

3 way lever switch (switch between pickups)

two 250K pots

.001mf & . 050mf capacitors

The bridge pickup has a copper shielded and taped coil, brass baseplate, and raised non staggered pole pieces; 5.9k ohms.

The neck pickup has gold-plated metal cover; 4.6k ohms.

The pickups are matched and built for the “Tele” sound and specs but the shielding and tape, etc. is there to reduce interference.

The tuning machines and modern Tele bridge are not vintage.

I play a Tele with a vintage bridge and I replaced the original tuners with the Gotoh tuners and they never slip and work great.

The Gotoh modern bridge is heavier than the traditional bridge with a solid brass base-plate and allen adjustable brass saddles – easily adjustable string height and intonation – and everything stays put.

My goal was to keep the best of the vintage designs and sound of a Tele but use some of the updated features for the tuners, bridge and output jacks that have improved over the years.

The pickups are also fully adjustable and I started at around 3/16 or ¼” from the strings, then keeping the settings on my amp that I usually use – volume and tone pots about half – I play and play, sometimes raising or lowering the pickups a hair higher or lower with a lot of playing until I find what my ear tells me is the sweet spot.

The neck has a 9.5” radius – 25.5 scale length, is licensed by Fender, and the action is fast and easily adjustable to a new owners style.

I’ve played a lot of blues, mostly acoustic, broken a few fingers wrestling horses and running a sawmill – and I tend to be a little heavy handed in my playing style but this guitar is really smooth and sweet if you use a gentle touch.

To purchase this guitar,
please contact Crow at:

crowsguitars@me.com
or call 530-629-2868

Crow’s Guitars
5 Noble Way
Denny/Burnt Ranch CA 95527
BY APPOINTMENT ONLY

(mornings or evenings are best to call, I don’t use an answering machine and I am working outside or in the woodshop on most days.)

We have a PayPal merchant account and can accept PayPal or VISA/MC as payment, but we would like to have a phone or email conversation first to make sure that the guitar will meet your needs and to allow us to quote you the exact shipping charges to your location. 

About the Guitar Maker:

I managed to retire in 1999 and my wife and I moved to our wilderness home in the mountains.

Our goal was to become as self sufficient as possible and I had purchased a sawmill, tractor and implements, and tools for a woodworking shop.  We have orchards, grapes, walnuts, a pond, and timber as well as creeks, springs, and a river that runs through our land.

I built a micro-hydro system that powers the house and shop and we spent most of what money we had on tools. 

I had played acoustic blues for years, and my wife had played piano in years past.  Someone gave us an overstrung grand piano-upright that was over 100 years old.  It took a lot of work, and most of one winter to rebuild as I had to read how to do it as I went along – I had been sawing lumber and building furniture for awhile so I had some woodworking experience.

Well, my wife started learning boogie woogie and blues on the piano but it drowned out the acoustic guitar so we couldn’t really play together.

I had always liked the sound, feel, and simplicity of Telecasters and the music of Muddy Waters, R. L. Burnside, Albert Collins, so when I decided to go electric to be loud enough to play with the piano, I started checking out vintage guitars and realized that vintage was beyond what a retired couple on social security could afford.

I did have time, beautiful woods, some experience and figured if I wanted a nice guitar I would have to build it myself.

The first one I built for myself was quilted maple top and bottom on a curly redwood core (sawed out of old growth redwood stumps from a friend with a small mill) to keep it light yet strong and keep the tone right. It had a vintage bridge and hardware, tuners, pickups, and neck.

I made a second one for one of my sons, also with some vintage parts.

Later I was asked to build another one and I used Gotoh tuners and Bridge Wilkinson pickups, quality pots, jacks and switches, quilted maple and redwood body + maple neck and rosewood fingerboard.  When we were buying the hardware and electronics I bought an extra set of everything in gold finish for the guitar you see, above.