‘Merel’ - My 50th Guitar Build (inspired by Mad Men)

Merel is my mid century, half century guitar: My 50th build!)

A Model M14 with Mastergrade European Spruce for the soundboard, which is one of my favourite top woods to use - you can’t really go wrong with this one, it has such amazing clarity. 

We used Mun Ebony - also called Moon Ebony - for the fingerboard and the bridge. We have some very interesting and very special English grown Claro Walnut for the back and sides - I love Walnut, I love working with it, it’s just so beautiful - it’s like a tiger. It has a Cherry neck, which has an oil finish on it. It feels buttery, it’s so lovely. I’ll definitely be doing more of these in the future.

This guitar has what we call stealth binding - a term I’ve stolen from our friend Stuart Ketchin - the binding is taken from the same material as the sides, so it blends into the overall look of the instrument. 

We’ve got some pear green purfling, but the really interesting and cool thing about this guitar is the Pistachio Linoleum that we’ve used on the headstock, the back of the headstock and on the heel cap - I’ve even included it on the bridge pins and the inside of the sound hole. 

I’m all about colour, texture and material choices and the inspiration for all this actually came from some bedside tables that I had at home which had a mid-century inspired aesthetic to them. I’d always wondered what that would look like on a guitar and so for my 50th guitar I went 1950s…and here is the result!

It’s the kind of guitar that I would expect to see in Don Draper’s house on the set of Mad Men - I just love that mid century aesthetic, especially the colours and textures.