I make guitars by hand, and co-own a company that produces two lines of guitars since 2008:

B.A. Ferguson (set-neck, traditional woods)  and Unitas guitars (bolt-on + exotic woods)
http://www.bafergusonguitars.com

Instagrams:   #bafergusonguitars     +     #unitas_guitars

We handmake pretty much everything and the last two years have really picked up steam.  We received editor's picks from Reverb.com in 2015
And Premier Guitar just last week from a new line we launched at summer namm.

I'm not trying to sell anything, but i am proud of what two guys have built from nothing but a little but of skill and ingenuity.

Ask me anything...

Drop some names.  Anyone play your guitars that we would recognize?  

I dont like doing it, but i will throw a few bones out there:  Lance Seymour (geartalk),  Nick Greer (Greer Amps),
Stevis Reyvis (the charriot), and we are currently building three for Steve Vai,  Zach Feinberg of the revivalists,
And Jordan Smith of Diarrhea Planet. The small company game is funny...Lots of our "competitors" and industry
people play our instruments.

I dropped my 5 string bass guitar and the nut broke on the side closest to the lowest (thickest) string) (low B I think.. haven't really had a chance to learn to play it yet).  

Could I buy a new nut on ebay and replace it myself or do I really need to take the thing to be 'set up'.  I've read some guides on how to set up a bass but I don't know.  My friend said the neck tension should be adjusted slowly over the course of a few days so the wood stretches gradually.  I tried to superglue the nut back together but I guess I didn't let it cure long enough or the super glue was just crap because once I put the string back on the slot of the nut where it broke, the piece broke right back off.  But the superglue did hold the rest of the nut to the guitar neck (I popped it off to glue the piece back together).

How much is my Jap made Fender Strat 93/94 Floyd Rose with the very rare Blue Sunburst worth?? I have only found one other for sell with the blue sunburst red I can find all day long. Two single coils and a humbucker with full locking tremolo. If want pics I can post some plus one of the SN that shows it is Jap made.

Do you poach figured maple from the woods?

You could easily do it yourself, with the right tools.  the proper nut files, a pencil cut in half longwise and sanded flat, and a good preslotted bone replacement nut.

The pre-slots are just for spacing.

Take off strings, Put new nut in place firmly with no gap underneath, and pur pencil flat on frets with the tip touching the nut.
draw a line on the nut while sliding across the frets from treble side to bass side.

Clamp nut in a vice for the actual slotting to depth.

That is your bottom out line. When you use the nut files (matched to the string guage) the fret side of the nut should not go below that line.
the rear (towards headstock) should be angled back lower than that line so you dont buzz.

Watch some youtube vids to put a picture to my words and you  will get it.

Off the cuff, i would say $400-700 to the right person, depending on condition. Floyds are tricky right now. Jazzmasters are the flavor of the month.

We only use figured maple when absolutely neccessary (someone HAS to have it and is paying well), and even then it comes from our private stock
which is aged, non kiln dried, and was felled personally by our mill operator on his property.

Prefect condition hasn't been plays since at leas 96 Will see if I can find pics on my phone to post. At least for when it was made it was Jap made not made in Mexico so that is always a plus. And forgot to add the wood is curly maple with the blue sunburst.

 
Cool.  I've done sound for The Revivalists.  That's awesome though, I don't really geek out on guitars any more but I will be on the lookout for your stuff

Tag.  Dad's birthday coming up. Good stuff op.

If you'in Aus, another of our earliest endorsees is Daniel Betts from Chasing Light

Your guitars look very nice.  Good on you bro.

I appreciate that - Thank you.  Thats still an old representation of the product line which was recently revamped
To the "good / better / best" formula.  They start at $1499 with case, then $2299, then $2799 on up through $3499
with all the bells and whistles.  

Glad to hear you are " making it" in the guitar biz.  I've always dreamt of going into the guitar amp biz but my research has shown the best way to make a million in the guitar amp biz is to start with two million.

In the amp game it's both easier to produce (chassis, transformers, cabs can be wholesaled) and harder to stand out (almost everything is a copy of a fender, vox, marshall or dumble).

In the guitar game, everyone can tell if you downloaded the g-code and cnc'd a fender product, or worse - just slapped a label on a partscaster made by someone else who cnc'd from fender g-code. I have partscaster shill-men stinkeye my booth at the Namm show every year.  But i dont do this for the money, at the end of the day.

50 years from now they'll write a book and there will be a chapter in it about us and how we semi mass produced without machines or automation.  ;)

Didn't I see you posting on the SDUGF about your guitars? Or maybe it was a customer.....can't remember. Either way, glad to see you here on ARFCOM!

Congrats!

Repair question: I have a nicely flamed koa body with FR routing, originally from a parts company. The numbskull that was installing the trem studs used an Ibanez Edge, and the inserts were larger than the OFR drilled holes. He drilled slightly larger, but not enough. The wood between the holes and the routing for the trem body gave way. He temporized with wood glue, but the studs have gradually tipped forward over the years.

Now that the numbskull is 20 years older, he regrets that course of action and hopes to salvage it. He's inclined to dissolve the wood glue, pull the studs, and try to put as many pieces back together as possible before re-drilling properly. The repair that isn't in a spot that will be very visible, and it may also work to drill larger and insert a hardwood plug if the wood is too mangled . Would gluing and redrilling be a reasonable approach, or better to clear out all of the damaged area and clamp in a new block of intact but not matching koa?

I dont believe so... i dont know know what sdugf is.

Personally i would remove the studs, drill out all previously affected wood, lathe a plug from scrap koa topgrain, and match as best i can. Obviously i would choose the plug and drill bit size appropriately beforehand. You might be able to use a koa pen blank, as they might offer them ready made in the round.

Thanks!

http://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/

And sorry for not recognizing your screen name, it didn't click in my mind without an avatar to go with it.

Very nice looking guitars. If I was in the market, I would give your product a serious look.

Maybe someday I will play well enough to warrant having something worth more than $100  

I guess I'll ask a question too. What are your favorite tone woods, where do you like them on a guitar, and why.

Check out the instagram accounts, and you'll see some crazy shit, and will see flamed maple and other common stuff is low on our pecking order.

Favorite for bodies is a soft, linear wood like honduran mahogany, alder or spanish cedar, with a hard cap like padauk, purpleheart,
Pecan, wenge, cocobolo, rosewood cherry, pear, sycamore, persimon etc.

For Necks,  i like to transfer as much energy as possible, so I like a very hard wood like wenge, rosewood, or sometimes mahogany/maple laminate.

We've also done outlandish things like quartersawn white oak tops on poplar backs with sapele necks with teak fretboards. Any wood is tone wood.
as long as it is *suitable* and can be predictably worked to actually do the job you ask it to do.

You can make a southern yellow pine neck, but you'll have to reinforce it with a trussrod and two carbon fibre rods.

Thx.  We actually don't do winter namm for a few reasons, mostly being shipping cost. It would run us $10-15k before staff airfare, which is ludicrous.

That mahogany looks awesome. Do want!

I am not a player. I've only ever owned three different cheapy guitars in my life. Based on that limited experience,  I like the maple fretboard better than rosewood. I never really cared for the feel of the rosewood. How does mahogany compare?

The only woods we use for fretboards are:  persimmon for a maple look (dont like maple itself), wenge, bubinga, Cocobolo,
East indian rosewood, zebrawood, and teak.  All very hard, mostly tropical.

Mahogany is not hard enough for fretboards, but for the neck itself it's great due to very straight grain.

In your opinion, at what price point do customs just get retarded when it comes to pricing.

For example, I've always been a fan of Alembic instruments, but with a price point of 10-15k for some of their instruments I sometimes look at them and go

At or around the $5,000+ mark, you get me making the retard face...

Some around this range are worth it, and amazing, and totally handmade -
Terry McInturff is a wizard and his math is proper. I love his work and he is a great guy.

Others are made by computers and do nothing any different than anyone else, and usually
they are huge companies like fender ir gibson custom shop, or Knaggs, or PRS. All machines,
all flamed maple, and all blah.

Others yet are total hacks who are assembling bought pieces, beating them up,
And pricing them at $3-$6,000

Do you know anyone in GA who does good work?
I have a custom Flying-V that was built for me by Bert Foster that needs a bit of fingerboard work and re-fretting (he is no longer in business, was built in 1987) and I have a '91 reissue Gibson SG Jr. in need of re-fretting as well.
The shop I used to get my work done at was also a Luthier School and they stopped doing shop work to concentrate on the school. I am without a trust worthy place and i have seen some bad re-frets.

Where in GA are you? Our repar and restoration facility does ludicrously fine fretwork. People ship from all over the world
to have work done, but we're just 2hrs north of Savannah.

Our storefront is FretsandNecksSC.COM  

So, I just bought a Fender P Bass. Just a Mexican  And I'm getting a little bit more buzzing than I'm comfortable with. For some reason I didn't notice it as much in the store.  LOL.  Ooops.   I THINK I resolved it, but I'm questioning what I did.

The neck was pretty much straight straight.  I couldn't see any bow.  It played beautifully but I figured the buzzing was fret buzz and put a little bow in it.  Had to lower the action some.  I put almost identical amout of adjustment on each bridge thingy by watching how many turns each time.  I'm not sure if it's totally set up perfectly, but like I said, it felt really nice.  I don't have one of those tools that you hold on the strings to make sure the curve is proper of course.  

Anyways......  I noticed that after doing all that, I get some of the same sounding buzz when I play the strings open.  Then I'm like, maybe it's not fret buzz.....  But then I have no clue what it would be.  The bridge?   I think I can live with it and I don't think it's coming through when I play through the amp.  I hope.  

YOU want a little bow in the neck, right?  To avoid fret buzz.  Don't you hold down the first fret and like the 8th or somewhere up there and check for a little bit of movement on the string?  

I know it's a cheaper bass.  But it's what I can afford.   Does somebody make knock off pick guards for Fender's that don't cost an arm and a leg?  I'm trying to figure out a way to tone down that color.  LOL.....  My wife likes it but it looks a little.....  I don't know, something.  Teenager ish?  Maybe....  LOL.   I'm 44 and not really a flashy person.  But this was what I found that played nice in my price range, locally.  I always have buyers remorse when dropping that kind of money on anything.  The amp I got, I think is solid though.  

I'm playing with my Church and using borrowed stuff (until now).  But the guy I borrowed from, even though he doesn't play much, doesn't want to give up his stuff.  So.....  I wanted to give it back.  Plus I can't seem to get the intonation perfect on his bass, even though I adjust the bridge.  The E and A string are always flat at the 12th fret.  I'll adjust and seem to get it and then it goes back to being flat.  Is that normal?  

Neck relief (bow) is a matter of personal preference. Alot of Jacksons and other super Strats come setup with a fairly flat relief, but even that varies a little bit. You might also try a taller nut, or the putting some paper underneath your existing nut to shim it up.

How come nobody can fix my Stratocaster's damn input jack?  Thing just crackles and pops constantly.  I've nicknamed the damn thing Rice Crispies....


Anyway, I keep drooling over getting a 7-string, neck-through, active electronic Ibanez or Jackson.  Would I actually notice much difference over my Bolt on passive Strat, tone wise?

(I did upgrade the pickups to Carvin Humbuckers in neck and bridge, and a single coil in the middle.  Have to admit, after an action job, and running it through my Boss Metal Zone with 10s, it sounds pretty mean right now.  Other than the damn input issues...)

Would you make me a copy of a 74 gibson flying v?  Thin mahogany body, set neck?

The frets may not be leveled, and the nut slots might be cut too deep.  A decent luthier can solve both for under $100. Intonation is also affected by the things you do to mitigate buzz, so that may be part of the issue.  There should be a tiny amount of bow, with perfect height and no buzzing.

Sure. We do custom one-offs a few times a year but dont advertise. This would run about $2450, but would include improvements - such as a better neckjoint tenon,
And a stress volute behind the headstock to prevent breakage.

My intonation issues were with the bass I was borrowing.  But I'll make sure to check mine since adjusted the neck.  It seemed to be fine when I checked it last.  I think the little bit of bow I put in the neck helped.  I'm not getting much buzz at all.  It's not perfect, but it's pretty good.   Good enough for me for now.  I don't think it had any bow at all in the neck when I brought it home.  Thanks for your input.  Good thread.

I'm in Lilburn (North of Atlanta). I'll check out your site. Thanks!

You do GORGEOUS work!!!!!
Wow...

I don't typically appreciate the body styles you have on your website, but your choice in woods and fittings make them simply gorgeous.
I'm a Les Paul, Carvin, EVG Wolfgang guy. I'm in the process of having another one made by Carvin. I have a CT6, and adore it.

I have to say however, I do not play well enough to buy a $3500 guitar. I can barely rationalize $2500. Your artistry is intriguing enough that I'd love to have you take artistic license and build a guitar for me. If I read correctly above, you could do a V for around that? Would you take license and make an opulent V?

ok...heres one.

Can you play?  and I mean play well?

Asking as there is a local custom builder here in my area that makes fine guitars, but can't really play, something I found surprising.