My guitar was commisioned from and built by Shamray Custom Shop in Moscow,
Russia. The work was done completely by hand, by master crafter Pavel
Bashmakov (Thank you, Pasha!), and the craftsmanship and build quality is
nothing but awesome!
The friendlyness and service from the guys at Shamray is absolutely
unsurpassed. A special thanks to Michael Walker! Without his vast
knowledge and good advice, as well as his extreme
patience, I would never have gotten a guitar this
fantastic. I recommend these guys to everyone interested in a
spectacular instrument. I'll bet that these guitars are right up there
with master built Fenders. (Actually, I've never handled one, so I
don't really know this, but still...) Now, if I
could only play the thing! ;-)
CS-0079 is in essence a vintage Stratocaster clone with a few
modern features like locking tuners, 9.5 inch radius fingerboard,
modern "C" profile neck, straplocks, 22 frets and Kinman noiseless
pickups. It also has a treble
bypass filter, the usual master volume control, a tone knob for the neck and middle pickups and a "bypassable" tone control for the bridge pickup.
In the spring of 2005, I started thinking about making yet another
attempt to learn to play the guitar. As I'd foolishly sold the Strat I
bought for one of my earlier attempts, ;-) I wanted another. (Damn,
how I regret selling that guitar back to the previous owner. It was a
1982 "1957 vintage reissue" in aged white, that the
previous owner (a HUGE YJM fan) had "yngwied" with a scallooped
fretboard, brass nut, and DiMarzio HS-3 pickups. Real cool guitar,
that! At least the previous/next owner has the chops to back up the
guitar's YJM looks. ...But I digress.)
I stocked up on guitar magazines (My problem is that I apparently
prefer reading magazines about whatever hobby I might be interested in
at any given time, instead of actually DOING it.) and started looking
for interesting MIA and MIJ strats on eBay and the local online
auctions/ads. I found quite a few good ones, mostly on eBay. I even
bid on a few. BUT, the problem is that most americans seem to despise
dealing with foreigners. ("Eeek, a *NON-AMERICAN*! Must be a con
artist, or maybe even a TERRORIST! Better shun him!") The few that
didn't, often got put off by the fact that I was a "Zero Feedback
Bidder" on eBay. Apparently those are dangerous too. Other sellers
didn't want to ship abroad. When I told them that I'd be using www.magnum.no for shipping, and
they'd only be shipping to New Jersey, only a few sellers were OK with
that. Of course, I lost those auctions. ;-)
So, as I became sick of eBay, I decided I needed to look elsewhere. I'd
heard about Shamray from a friend, but I had thought that there was NO way
that I deserved, or could afford, a custom built guitar. Well, I sort of
changed my mind about that. Why not get a decent (very very good, actually)
instrument right away? It'd be exactly what I wanted, and at a decent price.
After a
couple of e-mails to Shamray's Michael Walker, I was at the point of no
return.
As a bonus, It felt quite good as a "personal protest" too. "If the
Americans on eBay won't sell me a strat, I'll buy one from Russia!"
;-) I'm certain I won't ever regret getting this guitar, because I
think it feels, looks, plays and sounds absolutely phenomenal! ten out
of ten from me!
Here are a few mp3 clips played and recorded by Shamray's Michael Walker before the guitar left Moscow. (Through a VOX Tonelab modelling an 18 watt 1958 Fender Tweed amp and a modern 4x12 VOX cabinet.)
...And last, but definitly not least: Have a look at the build process in the Shamray "guitars in progress" forum.
