4.52am Issue: 032 4th May 2017 The Little Triggers Issue

MAD DOG MARSHALL
Montecristo Relic CBG
Before I started nailing guitars together
by the dozen, my first exercise in toedipping
involved making a few Cigar Box
Guitars. They were great fun to do, and
brilliant to play – even if my slide work
wasn’t – but the limits of my talent were
quickly reached and I moved on to more
forgiving methods. And that is something
I think people miss – making a CBG is, in
a lot of ways, harder than making a
traditional guitar, certainly a partscaster,
as everything has to be redefined and if
you are going the route of making them
from things you can find or pick-up
cheaply, you need talent and
imagination.
Time has moved on since I dabbled and
there are people around that take it a lot
more seriously and produce some quite
brilliant instruments. One I have been
particularly impressed by is Lee Marshall’s
‘Mad Dog Marshall’ guitars, which have all
of the attention to detail you would
expect of any luthier. And that is my
point, people like Lee are building guitars
that are exquisite musical instruments in
their own right, and he has an artist’s eye
when it comes to the finish and the detail.
Over the coming weeks I want to look at
several of Lee’s builds, but to start with
I’ve gone for one that is seemingly
simple. Based on a Montecristo Cigar
Box, it has a carved oak neck, with
brass frets. The nut and bridge are
obviously coming from the traditional
CBG approach of ‘what works, works’,
but it is the beautifully observed ageing
that catches my eye immediately. Lee
really has a talent for that and
especially on the oak of the neck it is
believably old and well used.
The other thing that I was really
impressed by was the 3 pole pickup. At
first glance it is easy to miss, but to
maintain the aesthetic of the guitar,
Lee has chosen to fix it below the top
of the box, with only the poles
protruding through the top. It may
seem to be a small detail to mention,
but they are the ones that let you know
the builder is ‘on it.’
Other than that, it is obviously 3
strings, tuned GDG, and will scream
like a hellhound is on your tail. What
else could you want?
You can check out more of Mad Dog
Marshall’s builds HERE, and you really
should