Liquid Metal Guitars / THE LMG T (BIGSBY) / 2013 / Guitar
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The Body
As with all of our guitar bodies, the "T", starts as a solid block of 6061 T6 Aircraft Aluminum and is then hogged out until we have the perfect body thickness. This is way denser than wood and the plucked string's energy stays intact much longer. This ultimately makes for clearer, more pure sound. Now Apple has gone and copied us, ( just using a little hyperbole here...:) ) ..and made their new Mac Book out of a solid block of aluminum.
the surface of the guitar is a machined cross hatched texture. You can definately see the patterned tool marks. Then the machined body is coated with the latest in scratch resistant clear coat just developed by Akzo Nobel for use on ultra luxury cars. This gives the machining a sense of depth, it is an amazing 3d look with an absolutely stunning luster. Again, with all our guitars this is a feature that is unique to metal, you can't do this machining in wood, you cant do the clear coat in wood and you can't get this damn fine sound in wood..
The Sound..
Pick your weapons:
Seymour Duncan had our guitar in his private shop, it was brought in by Don Felder and Bruce Greenwood and after the obligatory " I know what aluminum guitars sound like" he was amazed at how lively the guitar's sound was.
As, he is, he was intrigued and took about defining a set of off the shelf pickups to take advantage of the "cool" features of the guitar. We offer it with the PHAT CAT neck and the hot hot LIL 59 in the bridge.
and it didnt stop there, he and MJ, set about to design a custom set just for the Liquid Metal Guitar's LMG T.
Seymour said that he wanted to make the pickup set to take advantage of the liveliness, the energy and make a set that has no compression was wide open and clean.
Behold the Seymour Duncan Liquid Metal Guitars Custom Pick-ups.
Similar to what I did for Jeff Beck he says, I used a tapped pickup, where you get two tones coming out of the pickup.
The neck pickup, semi-vintage sound, closer to a 3 and 3 with a wide range, reading around 9k. Alnico 5 magnets.
The bridge is because of the dynamics hot at 15.97, and uses a ¼ pounder magnet.
It is a sensational range of sounds and the wisened pickup man made happen for us.
The neck
Stainless dual-action truss rod, 12" FB radius an absolutely fabulous 8 degrees of headstock angle to put the right amount of tension on the strings, med-jumbo steel frets, .103 wide and .048 tall, 1.71" wide @ nut, 2.22" wide @ 22nd fret.
The neck is made of canadian hard rock maple and it shaped and sanded to 600 grit to shape, then tung oiled and sealed. This makes for perhaps the most organic feel of a neck you will ever experience. It is fast and smooth and sweet to play. We do 8 coats of tung oil, sanding the first 4 times with 800 grit sand paper and the last 4 times moving up and ending with 1200 grit and then a clear sealer. There is nothing like it.
This another beautiful thing, we take a block of ebony and find the sweet spot grains on it and hew, yes, hew our finger boards from it. Beautiful long smooth fingerboards.
String holes, through the body
As you know the holes for the strings come through the body, we've taken it a step further. the string guide and through the body piece is cut out of the same block as the rest of the body, it is absolute integral, no separation, it is part of the body. This is just another unique feature that contributes to the over all exceptional "T" sound.
The nut
The self lubricating nut with tone; increases sustain, improves the tone of open notes, eliminates tuning ping, allows you to stay in tune.
The saddles
Graphtech String Saver™ Saddles are a unique combination of materials made to enhance tone and dramatically reduce string breakage. Try them and you'll see why so many of our customers say String Savers are absolutely the best guitar modification they've ever made!
Liquid Metal Guitars, Canada 
Welcome to Liquid Metal Guitars here on VintageandRare.com
LMG builds a line of metal bodied electric guitars with a proprietary precision machining process that takes advantage of the exceptional tonal qualities of dense block of aluminum. Each product linehas a custom pick up set made exclusively for that guitar by some of the best boutique pickup men in the business.
We know we are a bit on the outside, using aluminum for our guitar’s bodies, but we now know that we can and do build something that is exceptional to play, has fantastic tone and really a rather cool look about it.
Without fail, all who pick up our guitars are taken aback at how good it feels. They comment on the setup, the playability, the weight, the balance, the neck, the fret dressing and that is before it’s even plugged in and put into its natural “amplified” state.
The fellow’s whose work you will feel first is Paul.
He is responsible for the pro standard that each guitar achieves before it leaves our shop. Paul was the first guy on board and since that day has been instrumental in keeping us at an exceptionally high level of quality.
He is, certainly in our area, the best guitar man in the business. Guitar folk know the no-compromise consistent quality of his work.
Paul played with Bryan Adams, had a hit record with Strange Advance, worked with Jean Larrivee and then set up his own guitar tech shop here in Vancouver. He has done work for Dave Gilmour, The Edge, Sarah McLachan folks of that ilk.
He takes so much time on the set up of our guitars. They leave with a master’s hand and eye having made them imminently playable. The intonation is perfect, the finish perfect, the height of each pick up and their poles, with their unique tonal qualities, perfect and the result…. well it’s perfect.
Bernie was the second on board. After a working with a bunch of cowboys that really didn’t get what I was after I found Bernie through a guitar forum and lo and behold he was right here in Vancouver. Bernie is the man running the big metal cutting CNC machines, that take 30 lbs of aircraft aluminum and shapes it into our 3.5lb guitar body.
He is great guitar player in his own right, fronting a local band here. He has encyclopaedic knowledge of guitars and keen eye for their traditional detail. He is a third generation machinist, so he knows what is possible in the shop and then some. It’s his players’s knowledge of what is essential in a great guitar and his skill in machining that allows us to make a guitar body that not only looks great but is familiar in shape and weight. His work creates an exceptional platform for our boutique custom pickups makers.
The way we make our bodies is quite unique, we’re the only ones I know of doing it our way. We have defined a thickness that enhances the guitar’s tone and sustain. The body and sides are from the same block of metal, this gives the body superb strength, no wah, no bend in the metal. This allows for tremendous string energy retention.
And as a bonus, because we didn’t realize this when we started out, ( our first few prototypes didn’t accomplish this ) the way we build them now, it completely shields the pickups, allowing their tone to be pure and strong, no hum, no extraneous noise, not even from the single coils.
And Bernie, he is another “no prisoners”, as he likes to say, type of guy.
Fritz the man in the middle, is the fellow who sands, masks, buffs, levels, assembles each guitar. He is great guitar builder in his own right, building only custom guitars.
He is consistent and accurate. Our painting, clear-coat and finishing, is so important. The lines have to be perfect and straight, the neck transition sanding must create an absolutely seamless feel, nothing to catch on your hand and the clear coat so so smooth, that when you run your hands along it just feels good.
It takes time and skill to make a great guitar. Just the masking of the neck alone can take hours and in our process of painting and sanding and buffing he does this three times. Spending time like this, it one of those things that we can’t not do.
And then there is me. I love what I do here, it is a remarkable thing, making guitars.
I am very particular, bit pushy, I will redo it ten times to get it right. I know what I like and what I am trying to achieve or as Paul says ” you certainly know what you don’t like!”
For me now, with this group of craftsmen, it is akin to making music with a group of great session musicians. They each know they are doing, they bring a level of skill and attention to detail that raises everyone’s game.
It is not competitive per se, but it is that we know each is going to nail it, so had better give it our best. And like a group making music with that skill, that high artistic level, the end result is far greater than the sum of the parts.
We don’t build a lot of guitars but the ones we do, are exceptional.
Please call us regarding ordering, payment, shipping etc.
