|
Designed over dinner with Hank Marvin at Samois in 2006 this model has many unique features that may well go un-noticed at first glance. Hank was looking for a 14 fret body join Oval hole but with a shorter scale length approaching that of the Fender Strat's that he has been so familiar with through out his illustrious career.
He also liked the look of the guitar used by Django in his tour of the UK in 1938. This having the unusual feature of a 24 fret Maccaferri style fingerboard.
As can be see in photographs and film footage of that time, placing a short scale fingerboard on the Oval hole model body resulted in the bridge having to be moved up out of the ideal situation for good tonal response.
My challenge was to build a model that would have all the required features but without the misplaced bridge. To that end a new body model had to be formed that was 5 % smaller in length and width but slightly deeper to compensate for the loss of cubic volume and tone. The result was the 503 Petite seen here in Hanks favourite Birdseye Maple
|
|
