Creston Electric

PHOTOS BY SHEM ROOSE
2022-08-05
TRADITIONAL

TOM SUTTON'S ASH TRIPLE

Tom Sutton's guitar: ash body, quartersawn maple / katalox neck, Lollar Standard-wind sooapbars at bridge and middle / 1950's-wind soapbar at neck.

When Tom suggested transparent orange, I got nostalic for my first good guitar - same shape, turned orange by a retiree known for buying guitars at The Only Guitar Shop in Colonie, NY, near where I went to college, taking them home, experimenting on them in some utterly-devaluing way, and then trading them toward his next victim a couple months later. In this case, he put the butterscotch blonde guitar in some kind of homemade smoke chamber for a month, turning it vivid transparent orange (this was before the notion of "relic'ing" became commonplace). I sold it soon after I started making my own guitars, but I remember it fondly, heavy as it was. No smoke chambers for Tom's guitar - just transparent orange nitrocellulose lacquer.