PEAR Guitars 1980's 0n . . . .

[AZGuitars]

Hi Guys, I thought just to help keep this ball rolling I'd post some of my photo's of builds I did way back when. I also thought I'd post like 1 a day to build the anticipation as the days go by. My first post is a photo of 2 of my first what I call "Mini" guitars. The bodies are derived from the body shape of the early Gibson 350 jazz guitar only reduced in size. They are also semi hollow and have a 23.5' scale. I also had soft cases to fit, made by Reunion Blues Cases in San Francisco. The pickups are Bartolini probably P-60's and the wood is alder in both. Bill Bartolini had a Japanese distributor for his pickups and he saw these guitars one day. So he asked me if I wanted to build more for him to be sold in Japan. The cases, by the way, have Pack Straps so they can be worn like a pack for carrying. Sagi bought both guitars on the spot and was on his way back to Japan. He said he'd contact me later to place an order for more and that's when Japan's economy went under. Needless to say the deal never happened.
Though I did build a few more for the Bartolini's which they sold at their booth in the NAMM shows, I also built a couple more for myself. One has a Mahogany body with a black pearl sunburst and the other, which is unfinished as of yet, is alder with a figured maple top. It last one will have a coffee brown sunburst when done. I'll be showing that one later.

[metatron]

Wow, that cool 3/4.

[poserboy71]

I believe you had a mini guitar on the table when I visited. Was there a mini Strat shaped body as well ?

[ankh]

so cool!Love them!

Excellent workmanship

[AZGuitars]

I was going to post the Black Pearl mini but I don't have a good photo of it yet so today I'm posting the guitar I'm building for myself. Figured Maple on alder body to have a tobacco sunburst when done. Probably gold hardware too. Not sure yet what pickups I'll use. This is also a Mini by the way.

[AZGuitars]

Now here's an interesting beast. I don't remember why I got this one from a friend of mine who also built guitars. It may have been a trade of some sort but anyway I ended up with this thing. I totally did not like it and it had a neck like a fence post so I went to work on it big time. I first reworked the neck and then went after the body. The second photo shows what I did with it. The neck still needs some work and "maybe" some day I'll get to it.
I think it might look better in Candy Red but won't know unless I do it.



I still don't want to put my logo on it . . . .
And by the way that's a hard mount Kahler bridge.
Don't really like then either.

[Slayer]

Tom,
How much do you play guitar? What guitarists do you enjoy listening to?

[AZGuitars]

Hi Slayer, I still play a little bit but not much anymore. I had an opportunity to get in a band back in 72' but had already set my sights on going to Design College, (Art Center College of Design). But earlier than that I had seen a guitar that someone had painted for Eric Clapton and the seed was planted. Took me until about 84' before I started doing something about it, "designing and building". The rest is history.

Robby Krieger, Mark Knopfler, Georg Harrison, the Ventures, Dick Dale, Eddie Van Halen and of course old VV and a hundred more. Funny (to me) when I first met with Vinnie about the guitar he asked me who some of my favorite players were so I rattled off some names including Eddie and V didn't like that too much. I was thinking, besides him but I think now he wanted me to say it was him.

[Slayer]

Hi Slayer, I still play a little bit but not much anymore. I had an opportunity to get in a band back in 72' but had already set my sights on going to Design College, (Art Center College of Design). But earlier than that I had seen a guitar that someone had painted for Eric Clapton and the seed was planted. Took me until about 84' before I started doing something about it, "designing and building". The rest is history.

Robby Krieger, Mark Knopfler, Georg Harrison, the Ventures, Dick Dale, Eddie Van Halen and of course old VV and a hundred more. Funny (to me) when I first met with Vinnie about the guitar he asked me who some of my favorite players were so I rattled off some names including Eddie and V didn't like that too much. I was thinking, besides him but I think now he wanted me to say it was him.

Your a wise man in your deduction. I'm sure that your right in that he wanted to hear you say that your favorite player is Vinnie Vincent LOL

[AZGuitars]

I finally got a good shot of this "Mini"guitar. It's one of my personal favorites and it's Black Pearl on a Mahogany body with Ivoroid binding. The back of the body and neck are sunburst'd with the Mahogany showing through. Again it has a 23.5" scale and so far is the only one out of 6 the with other 5 I made being sold to interested parties. This one also has a solid body with the F holes routed 1/2" deep.

[AZGuitars]

Here's another fun photo . . . . this is my PEAR GUITARS display booth that I set up at a local "Good guys" car show in Pleasanton, CA. I had a good friend who taught guitar at the local music store come in to demo during the show. At one point I walked away from the booth down to the other end of the building and next thing I heard was Kyle playing a mean and very loud Stevie Ray Vaughn piece. as I rushed back to the booth I was caught up in herd of other people and some very upset vendors that were at the show yelling TURN IT DOWN! TURN IT DOWN! Apparently the unannounced demo drew all the of their customers away from their booths and they were kind of pissed off about it. Anyway, hee hee hee, this is it. . . .

[Slayer]

Absolutely beautiful!

[Genebaby]

I like that red guitar.

[Slayer]

Tom, your Strat's have excellent upper fret board access

[AZGuitars]

Thanks Slayer. The ones you're talking about are my "Scorpion" guitars and here's how I got there with that design. There was another guitar out at the time, the "Alvarez Scoop", see photo.



More about that guitar here:
http://www.myrareguitars.com/vintage-19 ... ric-guitar

Anyway I did a paint job on one of them and while I had it in my shop I traced it and later went about cleaning up the design minus the scoop thus creating the Scorpion Guitars. I built 2 neck through samples with Duncan Screamin' Demon bridge pickups one volume and Floyd 2 bridges. As you can see I also made a few bolt on bodies with various paint schemes. I'll show one of my bolt on favs here next time I post.

[poserboy71]

Sneaky !!!! Honesty is BEAUTIFUL. Most people would say it was an original design.
I was gonna ask if you were inspired by Buddy Blaze(Vivian Campbell).

[AZGuitars]

Sorry to Mr. Blaze but that design looks like S**T to me. I never liked it. Besides it looks like someone just wacked down the bottom horn on a strat body. Aaaarrrrgh! Some rockers have no taste at all! At least Vinnie was trying. It seems that he was treating it like a designer would. If he could have been educated as so he might be pretty damn good at it. His attention to detail was primo.

[AZGuitars]

Post Script:
So much has been done in the world of design that the majority of it is derivative anyway. With my Scorpions I feel that I just made a silk purse out of a sow's ear so to speak.

[AZGuitars]

Since I'm on the subject, here's a couple of shots of one of my Scorpion guitars . . . .



Closeup of the comfort carving on the back . . . .

[poserboy71]

Sweet

[Slayer]

What a great design!

That shape and design makes me harder than Chinese Algebra!

[shramiac]

Sneaky !!!! Honesty is BEAUTIFUL. Most people would say it was an original design.
I was gonna ask if you were inspired by Buddy Blaze(Vivian Campbell).

That's not a Buddy Blaze guitar Viv had there. It was a 27 fret Rand Guitar.

[AZGuitars]

Oops, shows you how much I've followed all the more recent bands. I was thinking that the guitar in the foreground was the subject of the conversation. Yeah, the one in the back is a lot nicer design wise. I still don't like the one in the front though.

[poserboy71]

Gotcha.Thanks

[shramiac]

Yes I was thinking (yes it hurt too!), "Viv's Rand kinda looks like Tom's guitar? What do you mean?"

I assume you were both referring to the Nightswan? If you meant "whacked down on a strat" for the Nightswan, I can see what you mean, Tom.

[AZGuitars]

In that photo I thought the guitar in the foreground was the one we were talking about as it's an ugly whack job. The Rand does look a lot like mine but I had never seen one until now. Possibly a bit larger and some other different details but similar. I think the body on mine is a bit smaller than the Rand as well. My bodies are all Alder and I was buying the necks from Stewart McDonald Guitar Shop Supply in Ohio. Trying to start a mass production thing but I didn't have the advertising to get them out there. The guitars in the photo above look kind of chunky and obviously derived from Strat bodies which is what I have a problem with. Too many Strats, too many Strats. I'll say it again . . . . Arrrrgh!

[poserboy71]

Yes I was thinking (yes it hurt too!), "Viv's Rand kinda looks like Tom's guitar? What do you mean?"

I assume you were both referring to the Nightswan? If you meant "whacked down on a strat" for the Nightswan, I can see what you mean, Tom.

My friend, Tom Weber(guitar tech to EVH, CC Deville,Lyle Lovett, Craig Goldie, Reba,etc...) bought the remaining Nightswans from Kramer when they went under years ago.
He still has them if anyone fancies one.

[AZGuitars]

Onward and upward. A local newspaper interviewed me at my first shop in Pleasanton, CA about a few months after I opened it. Just found this clipping in a file folder yesterday and I hope it's readable.

[Genebaby]

Vinnie is mentioned, interesting.

[poserboy71]