Rick Toone | Luthier

TOONE & TOWNSEND Six | Field Testing

VIDEO NOTES: Tosin Abasi, Javier Reyes, and Chris Buono test fly the prototype.

I built this prototype last weekend, on a whim. After days trapped at the computer doing CAD drawings, my body needed to move — construct things — and escape from the desk chair before becoming a permanent installation.

Fortunately, Friday afternoon, two care packages arrived: a) boutique array of pickups from DiMarzio's Steve Blucher, and b) myriad component pieces from Townsend Machine.

"Let's make some wood shavings," I thought, "and see how these drawings translate into an actual instrument."

I knew on Tuesday we'd be meeting Tosin & Javier to catch up in person as their Animals As Leaders tour passed through the Philadelphia-New York region. It would be really great to get their opinion on the production guitar design.

More importantly, no one but me had yet heard what tones the Exoskeleton neck is capable of producing...would they like it?! Let's field test!

PHOTOS: Body contours of the pending TOONE & TOWNSEND Six, Seven, and Eight production guitars. DiMarzio Fast Track 1 pickup in neck position.

What is remarkable and exciting about all of this is the risk these professional musicians were willing to take by appearing on camera playing a completely unfamiliar instrument, one that is also quite radical.

Think for a moment about this.

These three artists — Tosin, Javier, Chris — were confident enough to pull a strange instrument from its case, cameras rolling, and dig in on what would essentially become a permanent public performance. Chris Buono fearlessly took it a step further and used the guitar throughout his Lithium Tree sets that night.

We are all really lucky, I think, to capture these initial impressions. Reactions are spontaneous and genuine. The playing throughout the video is absolutely stunning.

Guys, I can't thank you enough. PS: Bart & Monster, too.

Evan Brewer | Bass In Progress

PHOTO: Claro walnut (curly & crotch) body facing contrasts powerfully against the extreme multiscale hickory fretboard.

Listening to Evan Brewer's solo instrumental recording Alone (Sumerian Records). Sifting photos, notes, writing this post.

His playing seeps through the filters of my subconsciousness, my brain split — right hemisphere detached and drifting on intricate bass grooves, left hemisphere directing fingertips typing in syncopated collaboration.

PHOTOS: Blues and greens swirl within abalone octave position markers, a glimpse (portholes?) of an undersea world. Stainless steel frets. Figured red oak cloaks titanium neck core. Hand fabricated stainless steel headstock anchors string ball ends.

I reach toward design solutions with this instrument, constantly aware of Evan's muse — and can almost feel her feet dancing lightly, restlessly, on my shoulder. Intense, like Evan. She reminds of intricacy and organics.

"Yes, machinery," she says, "but woods and metals blended with curve and flow."

Creative Destruction

One of the fun aspects of my work is trying to destroy the things I create. I do this so you don't have to. It is important to fully understand the limits of a design before sending it out into the world.

This week the prototype Exoskeleton™ neck was subjected to rapid cycles of heating and cooling plus flex testing. Oven temperature of 200 Fahrenheit (93 Celsius) then freezer temperatures of below zero Fahrenheit (-18 Celsius).

Repeat.

These temperature ranges are far beyond any playing conditions your instrument will ever encounter — you would burn your hand — but they are potential worst-case scenarios for a guitar left in a black van in direct desert sun in August. Or overnight in the mountains in January.

Video inspired by machinist Tom Pilant who used an hydraulic press to flex test one of these prototype necks three full inches at the machine shop, where they have much more precise measuring equipment. Zero tolerance deviation on spring back.

Even after three inches of unidirectional flex.

Aircraft aluminum is an amazing material. This whole process has given me an appreciation for how safe and well engineered flight machines actually are.

Exoskeleton | Aluminum Guitar Neck

Gleaming in the sunlight, lightweight, resonant, Exoskeleton™ guitar neck machined from solid aircraft aluminum. Possibly the most exciting guitar technology I've ever experienced.

Featured on the pending TOONE & TOWNSEND production guitar.

Headstock | Inverted

Quarter sawn curly maple, claro walnut, ebony, and titanium converge in complex angles and curves. Sperzel tuners.

"...hanging hole on the beak plate really looks like eye of Horus (Egyptian bird-like warrior god)."

R.S.

Inspiration for this comes from bouncing ideas off a very creative, very focused (and skilled) client of mine who thinks quite differently from how I usually do. Highly intelligent person whose aesthetics are rooted in a culture that is not Western.

I think we are both surprised by the power of this collaboration.

In many ways this guitar is the most challenging — and most beautiful — instrument I have attempted...