Garcia's next guitar arrived in the mail at the Grateful Dead office in 1993. Stephen Cripe, a 39-year-old Florida woodworker who spent years building custom interiors for Caribbean yachts, decided to try his hand at making a guitar. … " Garcia was amazed when it came around," said band mate Bob Weir, "… It was astounding." Garcia gave the piece to San Francisco repairman Gary Brawer to fix the electronic guts, but it was a miracle guitar. [Jerry] pronounced the piece "the guitar I've always been waiting for" and began playing the instrument exclusively. http://dozin.com/jers/guitar/history.htm
Silberman’s next guitar arrived at his local UPS store in the third week of July 2014. Leo Elliot, a skilled and respected luthier specializing in Garcia-style guitars, built it for him. Silberman was amazed when it came around. It was an astounding instrument. Silberman gave the piece to Baltimore luthier Phil Jacoby to address the fretwork and make other adjustments, but it was a miracle guitar. Jon pronounced the piece "the guitar I've always been waiting for" and began playing the instrument exclusively.I ordered my Scarlet Wolf 2.1 in July 2013. I received it a year minus a week later in July 2014. I postponed posting on it until now for two reasons. One, it needed certain adjustments to fit my playing needs. Two, I wanted to put it through its paces first with my band, the Thankful Dads. Both have now happened so here’s the short and long of it.
This is now the finest built and best sounding guitar I have owned or played.
First the tone: absolutely gorgeous, bell-tones that have a lifetime of ring left, I can tell. My bassist put it this way when I first brought it to rehearsal: “It doesn’t sound like you’re playing any louder but all I hear is your guitar playing, it’s so present and clear.” The straight tone alone is gorgeous. Frankly, I could live with just that but add in the Stratoblaster and the tone is mind-blowing. Indeed, this is going to be a challenge and a blessing: every note I play is so crystal clear, it’s forcing me to up the ante on my playing because whatever I get right or wrong with this guitar – you’re gonna hear it!
Next the wood and inlay work: the craftsmanship and woods on this instrument are beyond amazing. I’ve never seen or played anything like it before. Everything is top-notch. And the finish color is perfect. In particular, Leo worked with me extensively on two features especially important to me, the neck carve and the golden amber/honeyish finish. I really can’t be more effusive here. He nailed both.
Now the areas where I needed to have Phil adjust the guitar for me. IMPORTANT: I’m trusting y’all to pay attention to and understand the difference between a design or build flaw and a feature that’s within spec but the client simply has a personal preference for something different. With this in mind –
The guitar came with one minor flaw. There was insufficient finish sprayed on the top side (by the fretboard edge) of the neck. This resulted in so called “orange peeling” due to too much of the finish sinking into the wood unevenly, making the area rough to the feel. Phil and I tried lightly sanding it to smooth it out without success – the finish is so thin that to fully smooth it out would have taken us down to the wood itself. My choices going forward are to have the area of the guitar resprayed and buffed or to get used to or ignore it. I’ll likely do the latter.
The rest of my comments are addressed to aspects of the build that I consider within spec but that I needed to modify to suit my personal playing style and preferences.
The guitar came with what, to me, was action too high to work effectively within. I have no doubt the stock action was within the specs of the original Wolf and Jerry’s preferences but Jerry isn’t playing this guitar, I am, so the set-up and action’s got to fit me. But when I tried lowering the action, I hit three blocks. The first was lowering the bridge caused string buzz in the upper frets. The second is the bridge bottom soon hit flush up against the bottom left PUP ring mounting screw, preventing further lowering of the bridge. The third is the nut was cut too high to fit appropriately with anything but very high action (indeed, this issue, when I first played the guitar, panicked me into thinking I’d made a horrible mistake on the 16” fret radius – turned out, my initial difficulties were due entirely to the high nut string slots, as soon as we fixed that, no further difficulties).
Here’s how we addressed the issues.
For the fret issue, Phil Pleked the guitar for me. The Plek graphs showed discontinuity between aspects of the 1-12 and 13-24 frets. These were responsible for the buzzing. The Plek job, followed by some custom-for-me adjustments by Phil, fixed everything. The action on the guitar is now medium as I prefer it but if for any reason in the future (old age, Parkinson’s, arthritis, carpal tunnel – the vicissitudes of life are uncertain) I want even lower action, with the turn of two screws, I can have it.
For the bridge issue, Phil removed the bridge, drilled the cavity in the bridge for the screw head slightly deeper. He also filed a tad of metal off of the underside of the screw head itself. Upon reinstalling the bridge, issue resolved.
For the too-high nut, Phil filed the string grooves until the nut and first fret action heights matched my preferred set-up.
As a result of the above, the guitar now plays like proverbial butter up and down the neck. Every string, at every fret, rings true and clear with full sustain. From this experience, I’d recommend a Plek job for anyone else having issues like mine with any new or old instrument.
I made two other minor changes to Wolfie to suit my personal specs and playing needs.
First, I replaced the stock large metal tuner heads with small ebony buttons. I did this because I ordered the guitar with locking tuners notwithstanding Leo’s warning that it would add weight to the headstock (I like locking tuners – I don’t have a tech to fix my broken strings at gigs, I need to be able to do it in seconds by myself). The tuners Leo chose for me are 16:1 Schaller m6 2000s and they’re fabulous but heavy. This was causing just a very slight amount of “neck pull.” Switching to the small ebony tuners took I’d guess 2 oz. off of their weight, curing the issue. I think they look sweet, too.
Second, the stock 25K mil-spec (NOS, I believe) CTS volume pot wasn’t working for me at all. It was both too stiff – moving it with my pinky for volume swells was out of the question, it was just too darn tight), and the taper was off (I’m assuming it was a linear pot) for the uses I need to put it to. My band doesn’t have a keyboardist – I cover a variety of keyboard parts on guitar, relying on rotary speaker-type effects and volume swells. (Interestingly, when I mentioned this issue to Leo, he told me I’m the first client ever to say this about one of his pots. This surprised me. I can’t imagine playing guitar without constant mucking with my volume pot, including swells.) But in any event, it was an easy fix. Phil replaced the stock volume pot with a 25K Bourne audio pot which has both the “action” and taper I require. I then replaced the stock volume knob with an Armadillo medium-knurl aluminum knob for maximum effective gripping.
Concluding thoughts:
I could not be more pleased with my new Scarlet Fire Wolf. I’ll be playing and gigging this guitar for the rest of my natural life. If I may borrow from Jerry’s words, I pronounce Wolfie “an astounding guitar … the guitar I’ve always been waiting for.” Leo was a pleasure to collaborate and communicate with on the instrument. With the sole possible caveats to build in a reasonable cushion into your quoted delivery date (Leo’s a one-man shop and we’re all human beings with health, family, and other responsibilities in addition to our demanding vocations) and a post-receipt pro fret job and set-up (when you prefer lower/easier action than did Garcia), you’ll be absolutely thrilled with the tone and craftsmanship of a Scarlet Fire Wolf. Thanks, Leo!
More pics to follow when I can get to taking and posting them.
P.S. Anyone local to the DC area? The T-Dads’ next gig is Sat., August 30, 6-9 PM, at the Mantua Swim and Tennis Club in Fairfax, VA (outdoors on the deck if sun, inside in the clubhouse if rain). Come hear Wolfie for yourself!
Last edited by Jon S. on Mon Aug 25, 2014 5:52 am, edited 3 times in total.
MY ORIGINAL MUSIC (available on all streaming platforms):
Galvanic Samurai (2021)
Traffic in the Moonlight (2023)
So Glad I Came (2023)
Desiderata (2024)
Duality (2025)
Love, Loss, Ecology, and War (2026)
Caught in the Current (2026)
Legacy (coming 2027)
Jerry would be the first to tell us, "I never spent my life copying anyone."
Galvanic Samurai (2021)
Traffic in the Moonlight (2023)
So Glad I Came (2023)
Desiderata (2024)
Duality (2025)
Love, Loss, Ecology, and War (2026)
Caught in the Current (2026)
Legacy (coming 2027)
Jerry would be the first to tell us, "I never spent my life copying anyone."
