Dmitry Sushkov

Raw mill the body yesterday.

I wanted. Ragne didn't

Milling baseplates.

Pickup coils wound.

On 12/28/2018 at 5:46 PM, Stu. said:

Are you rocking a wooden CNC?!

Yes, it's MDF construction with true mahogany tool holder

And how it looks after planer.

Do you see the devil's head?

No one producer made 9-string pickups. Do It Youself then.

The first version of Wahlgaard was built through 2017 as a prototype (fully functional though). Based on this experience we made some adjustments and improvements for new version build.

Wahlgaard means walnut guard in Sweden. The customer is Ragne Wahlquist, guitarist and co-founder of old and well known Swedish metal band Heavy Load, performed a reunion for an album release and several shows across Europe in 2018. Wahlquist means walnut leave in Sweden. My very first build in 1995 was a walnut explorer. So you know what a walnut smell means for me after a year of repairs. A new build. I allways preferred something unusual. This time it's 9-strings baritone solidbody carved top instrument with some interesting wiring ideas. Stay tuned, I'll post every progress step here.

Hi there.

Just started new project and want to share the full story here. 

Chatpter I.

Walnut smell.

1 hour ago, psikoT said:

Hi @jpecc, feel free to open a post of your project here if you want feedback from us, better than posting in a forum which requires to be registered to see the post. Registrations usually take a couple of minutes and most of us lazy dogs are not willing to do.   But for some weird reason we love to see pics of people working so you will get some comments for sure. Your guitar looks really cool for a first attempt, you should definitely keep building more of them.

I voted for the one which is in the stage, because that's a real plus to me. I'm not fan of headless and I really don't like the signature in the top, but yeah... it's in the stage.

Thank you! Actually this was a prototype. Another one with some improvements coming soon.

4 hours ago, MiKro said:

I'm an old fart so excuse me, I would like to see the build thread on PG not somewhere else.

The problem is, that build process publishing is a huge time consuming hole. Doing it at multiple places is a stupid copy-paste job I never wanted to do, I'd better pay more attention to build itself and customer feedback. That's why I choose facebook where all of my customers have their accounts prior to PG or any other resource. This particular guitar was not public at all during build as I mentioned in the description.

SUSHKOV GUITARS

Hi. I'm Dmitry Sushkov, a luthier from Prague, the Heart of Europe. I have started my own guitar shop July 2015, but with a long guitar making background as employee. I have already posted my guitars here, you can check them in 2016` GOTM archive (both are winners).

The Wahlgaard project.

This build took me almost whole 2017. Starting from sketches to shipping. The customer is Ragne Wahlquist, a guitarist of  Heavy Load, well known Swedish oldschool metal band. The story of this guitar started 3 years ago when I bought a very nice curly walnut slab (just couple pieces remained for now ) and made my first demo guitar, - the Saracen with beautiful flamed walnut top. Wahlquist means a walnut leave in Sweden and Ragne searched for some special guitar made from walnut for upcoming (top secret at the time) reunion his old Heavy Load band. He felt very limited with just 6 strings and wanted NINE of them. After couple months of discussions I started from a very raw sketch made in FreeCAD.

After almost a year Ragne received a very nice Christmas gift Here you can check his own impressions.

The specs are:

Guitar construction: 9 strings set-neck headless baritone.

Hardware color: gold

Body wood: sapele mahogany

Top wood: american black walnut

Body inlays: custom MOP customer's signature

Neck construction: 3 piece with carbon laminates

Scale length: 28"

Neck wood: sapele mahogany

Fretboard wood: ebony

Frets: 29 x stainless steel SINTOMS (20 x 2.5mm and 9 x 2mm)

Fretboard inlays: custom MOP "leaves" and customer's personal monogram

Finish: clear coat high-gloss polyesther

Pickups: 2 x custom made PAF inspired, wide AlNiCo5 bar magnets and gold plated poles, brass base plate.

Bridge: Gold plated MERA Submarine III rev.2

Nut: Black TUSQ.

Toplock tailpiece: custom made MERA.

Truss rod: 1 x double action.

Electronics: active onboard very bright sounding JFET preamp.

Controls: 2 volume pots, 1 tone pot, pickup selector switch, preamp switch.

Case: SKB waterproof Injection-Molded flight case.

And some videos from 2018 festivals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNi6edcf3wM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3PNvcROTUM

The Black Bird for the artistic wood matching.

And thank you for your vote!

Sure! I post every progress on my facebook page since the very beginning. Initially I planned to start from pickups without setting up a special workshop, but now I'm happy I can do everything.

Quote

I might be visiting Prague in July, so maybe I'll look you up.

Wow! Looking forward!. Just pick up a message in advance, I'm in the shop only weekends for now.

It's polyester.

Hi there!

Let me introduce my little guitar shop Sushkov Guitars located in the heart of Europe, lovely Prague.

I built my first guitar in college, somewhere in 1995. Since 1999 my hobby turned to profession. 3 years ago I moved to Prague and last summer founded my own shop. There are already 3 guitars ready and another 3 in progress.

#0001 Saracen

A lespaul inspired guitar with mahogany back and american walnut top. This is the very first demo guitar and it's for sale now.

#0002 Walnut tune

A Tune bass inspired design. Maple neck and american walnut body. This was a custom order.

#0003 Zebra Ash - GOTM winner in May 2016.

7-stringed custom design, european ash body, maple/ebony neck.

#0004 Walnut Christmas tree

A neck-through guitar with very nice piece of walnut on top ;-) Hope I'll get a chance to join a June or July contest with it.

Sushkov Guitars #0003 Zebra Ash

The third build in my new workshop in Prague - 7 string custom guitar. Of course not the third in general. I built over 100 guitars during my work in most known Russian guitar custom shop. But here is the third guitar of my own brand and third since I leave Moscow...

Construction: set-neck

Scale: 25.5"

Neck material: 3 piece Maple with Walnut stripes and Ash headstock veneer

Fingerboard: Ebony

Body: European Ash

Tuners: HipShot GripLocks

Bridge: HipShot hardtail

Nut: black TUSQ

Pickups: matching Sushkov Custom pair with AlNiCo-V rod magnets & ebony covers

Frets: SINTOMS NiSilBer extra hard 2.5 mm

Controls: Volume, Tone, 3-way p/u selector switch, push-pull series/paralel coils for neck pickup

Finish: clearcoat polyester

http://sushkov.net/

https://www.facebook.com/sushkovguitars/