Forty-Four Hollowbody Custom from Island Instrument Manufacture

[J.R. Rogers]

Continuing our recent 'something a little different' theme... This is my new Hollowbody Custom from Island Instrument Manufacture, hand crafted by luthier Nic Delisle in the Mile End Guitar Shop in Montreal Canada. Here, Nic shares a shop with one of our sponsors - Mike Kennedy of Indian Hill Guitars and other guitarmakers building instruments in the heart of a neighborhood known for its music scene.





Nic build's guitars exclusively from North American made hardware and domestic and reclaimed wood, and uses environmentally-safe finishes. Nic also builds acoustic parlor/blues guitars as well as custom basses.





This Hollowbody is a hand built custom variation of Nic's 'Forty-Four' design, which hearkens back to the Harmony guitars of the 50s' and 60's. STRATOTONE! Here's an original H44:



Body is a 1-pc sinker cedro espino recovered from the Panama Canal, neck is mahogany, and the top, headstock, and backstrap are flamed maple. The body is extremely light (because it's hollow), and balances perfectly with the neck. The strings run across a custom floating brass bridge and then through the body. The headstock is fitted with high-ratio Waverly tuning machines and ebony pegs. The fretboard is black locust with no inlays, the fretwire is EVO, and the the nut is brass. The pickup is an Island proprietary design by Pete Biltof of VintageVibe Guitars. Using a brass cover and gold foil over the magnet, this pickup has a unique retro design that reminds me of an old tube-type radio. The pickup is wired straight to the jack to eliminate any coloration from the volume and tone controls. While I was a little worried about this config, once I got it I found that I really appreciated the clean signal that I could get off of this guitar. Played through a good tube amp, volume is controlled by the dynamics of your playing. The signal from this guitar is clean and big, almost acoustic sounding, and the guitar itself sustains like a grand piano.







The grand-piano-like sustain of this little guitar and the huge resonance and clear tones from the small body are inspiring. I've fallen in love with this guitar and find it hard to put down. It really has a sweet, full, natural sound through my Humphrey tube amp. As an acoustic player, this is the perfect little electric to switch to when the bigger box becomes fatiguing to play.

Here's a sound clip of this guitar:
http://youtu.be/oXJc7DJzrzk

Check out a review of the Island 'Forty Four' and sound clips at Premier Guitar:
http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazin...ar_Review.aspx

And check out a soulful demo from RJ Ronquillo here:
http://youtu.be/D14uBkRHEKg

J.R. Rogers

[IndianHillMike]

We like to give Nic a hard time for not building "real" guitars (ie. acoustics) but he's really been putting out some nice stuff with pretty unique details not seen on most electrics. Check out the violin style purfling on this one (you can see the same curls in the maple on both sides of the purfling)...

Originally Posted by J.R. Rogers

Now if only he would work on his penmanship...

Originally Posted by J.R. Rogers

Mike

[Teleplucker]

That is another very cool guitar that I do not need!

[Island Mfg.]

Originally Posted by Teleplucker

That is another very cool guitar that I do not need!

But you WANT one, right?

Hi all! A big shout out to JR for sharing my work! I look forward to spending some time on the forum here, getting to know you folks and sharing my builds.
Like JR said, I DO build small-bodied nylon string guitars... but mostly just in my "down time" - which is rare. I hope to be able to dedicate some time to them at the end of summer. For now, I should head over and check out the electric sub forum!



And yes, I do eat my fare share of ribs working in this shop... but I'll gladly eat my weight, in exchange for the privilege of being able to build alongside guys like Mike.

[printer2]

Originally Posted by Island Mfg.

But you WANT one, right?

Hi all! A big shout out to JR for sharing my work! I look forward to spending some time on the forum here, getting to know you folks and sharing my builds.
Like JR said, I DO build small-bodied nylon string guitars... but mostly just in my "down time" - which is rare. I hope to be able to dedicate some time to them at the end of summer. For now, I should head over and check out the electric sub forum!



And yes, I do eat my fare share of ribs working in this shop... but I'll gladly eat my weight, in exchange for the privilege of being able to build alongside guys like Mike.

Hope to see more of your guitars.

[ValveMan]

Originally Posted by J.R. Rogers

" . . . It really has a sweet, full, natural sound through my Humphrey tube amp. As an acoustic player, this is the perfect little electric to switch to when the bigger box becomes fatiguing to play.

Thanks for the bump JR! Excuse the pun, but we've been hearing great feedback from customers with hollowbody guitars recently - very cool!

I haven't posted pics here for a while, so I'll attach a couple of a walnut amp we shipped to NY last week.
Best!