I was surfing the Web tonight and discovered that you have a picture of my guitar in your April 2006 Blog. I thought you might like it if I wrote to you to tell a little bit of the detail of the guitar.

It is a Belman Albatross Grand. It was custom-made for me to some of my own specifications by Belman Guitars in Melbourne Australia.

I had a Gibson Les Paul that was really great that so heavy and so when I had this one made I ask Belman to cut more air chambers inside the guitar to make it lighter. They were a little reluctant to do that because they said it might change the characteristics of the sound and the performance of the guitar, but I told them that I would take the risk and the responsibility so they went ahead. I also got them to mix a custom colour from me that we called “honey” and it really makes the guitar look really beautiful.

The wood for the the guitar is Brazilian maple bought under licence. It took six months to get and was quite expensive. The wood for the top of the guitar was cut in half and splayed open in what is known as a ” Tigerstripe” arrangement. The fingerboard is dark rosewood.

The inlays in the guitar are a mixture of mother of pearl and New Zealand Paua shell that give it a green tinge when turned in the light. The colours are absolutely amazing.

The pickups are also custom-made by Belman and sound fantastic.

When the guitar was completed, I went out to the factory to pick it up and the owners of Belman, the guitar makers and myself all agreed that with the extra air chambers inside, this solid body guitar is one of the most acoustically resonant solid body guitars they (and I) have ever heard.

I still have this guitar in Melbourne Australia along with the other 42 that I own. This is the only custom-built guitar that I have had made though. The rest are straight out of the shop albeit with a few modifications here and there.

I am currently living in Hong Kong and the guitar that I use as an all-rounder here is a Taylor T5 combined with a Roland AC90 guitar amp.

You can see some of my friends and I playing if you go to my personal web site at www.sushinoodleguy.com

Cheers

Alan Brown

But I downloaded and installed the pic on my blog, so no more interruptions in my parade of guitar pinups.

You know, it is a really beautiful piece of work. It’s not too Les Paul looking, nor too far from it. It’s got a nice shape and great headstock. The wood is just gorgeous.

Ah, if only I had unlimited funds for toys like this.

I’d probably be more into doing that if it were a web site that I keep locally and upload to a server, but for a blog it’s really a pain in the butt to download, upload, find the new filename, and plug it in to the blog. It takes twice the time I would normally spend putting in a few blog articles.