‘Araminta’ - Our chance to push the boundaries!

Araminta is our latest white label guitar from the workshop.  White label guitars are our chance to experiment and push the boundaries of guitar-making, and this is no exception.

Araminta is a Model M14 in beautiful Carter Redwood, bound with Honduran Rosewood, a Honduran Mahogany neck, handmade German Scheller machine heads and some outrageous London Plane from Kensington High Street.

Kensington High St, once home to 60s and 70s fashion mecca BIBA, is now home to a large part of the British music industry, with the UK offices of major record labels all located in the area, so we thought it fitting to make a stunning guitar from one of its former, woody residents.

We’ve tried a load of new things with this guitar, as we do with all our white labels.

Let’s start with the London Plane (Platanus acerifolia) - one of the capital’s most common trees. The wood of London Plane trees is predominantly comprised of the sapwood, with some darker heartwood streaks also found in most boards. This sapwood is white to light pinkish tan, while the heartwood is a darker reddish brown. Those pinky hues pair really nicely with the Honduran Rosewood.

Then we have the black and gold theme on the soundboard - I’m calling this a “nebula” copper.

And we have a different kind of finish, a natural raw finish, with a very thin oil wax combination, open grained, giving it a beautiful tactile, soft satin sheen.