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Custom Guitars |
Leverty Custom Instruments is a collaboration between luthier and musician Dick Levens and guitar airbrush artist Jim Fogarty. Both of whom share a desire to produce innovative and totally unique high quality musical instruments.
The Concept Both Dick and Jim are perfectionists who like to push 'boundaries' where-ever possible, both looking to produce something different - just take a look at the work on their individual websites if you need any proof of that. It was sometime later, after much coffee and lengthy discussions that the concept of the 'Guardian Guitar' was hatched. The basic idea was to develop some guitar designs that combined ergonomically shaped guitar bodies with the artwork being painted onto them. This unlike most custom painted guitars, where the guitars are generally a fairly standard shape but with a custom paintjob applied, usually as an afterthought. The original idea for the 'Guardian' guitar was quite simple - to combine some 'mega-detailed' guitar artwork with a totally handbuilt guitar that would play as well and sound as awesome as it looked - and so it was that early plans for 'Eric' were hatched.
Pencil drawing design for the front of the Leverty Guardian Guitar 'Eric' will be the first 'Leverty Special' unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. A total 'one off' custom, mahogany bodied, 'Aaron Armstrong' custom built pickup shod, maple necked and ebony fingerboarded beastie, wearing probably the near ultimate in highly detailed guitar artwork.
An early stage picture of the back of the Guardian Guitar body, being shown as a 'Works in Progress'.
A development stage of the front of the Guardian Guitar as of 02.10.08
The back of the Guardian Guitar as of 04.10.08 'Eric', aka, 'Guardian Guitar' is now in the final stages of being painted and is being shown as a 'Works in Progress' on Jims' website. You can follow the work as it progresses and see it develop stage by stage simply by clicking the images above.
Click on the images to see more
The Leverty 'Classic PL1' is the design of Peter Levens, Dicks' fifteen year old son...........and it is gorgeous. These pictures unfortunately don't do it justice. It's not light, being made of solid maple, but it has lovely tone, is perfectly balanced and feels as sexy as Pamela Anderson in silk stockings (unfortunately I can only imagine that). The finish is a lacquered finish, but unpolished giving the guitar a really classy look and a feel you have to experience to appreciate.
An example of Jims work - Click on the image above to see more of Jims custom guitar airbrush work and finishing.
The whole concept of 'Leverty' custom guitars is that they are totally unique, individually crafted one offs. There will never be a limited edition 'Leverty', as neither Dick or Jim like going over same ground twice. The challenge for them is in constantly pushing one step further, whether it be in design, materials, technical spec, artwork or finish. Owning a 'Leverty' guitar, you will be guaranteed the ultimate sounding, top quality, hand crafted, totally unique and beautifully finished guitar.
Some of Dicks previous work
Only very limited numbers of 'Leverty' guitars will be made each year, as each individual guitar is a totally one off concept. So if a hand built, custom designed and totally unique guitar appeals to you it's worth having a chat with either Dick or Jim. They will happily help and advise you on the best route to your dream guitar and between them almost anything is possible.
A 'Leverty' custom guitar can either be built totally to your own technical or artistic specification, or, can be designed and developed by Dick and Jim around the most basic of ideas. Like any specialist hand built instrument, quality and originality take time. Each guitar is individually designed to be both aesthetically and ergonomically correct and then taking anything up to three months to build and finish. Prices for 'Leverty' customs vary according to design and finish specification, so please feel free to give them a call.
If you would like to see more of Dick and Jims previous work, they each have their own websites which are well worth checking out. Here you'll get some idea of the kind of work they produced individually and see why, working together, Dick Levens and Jim Fogarty make 'Leverty' custom guitars so unique.
Levens- custom electric mandolins, pizza fiddles, and other things with strings Dick Levens The Old Schoolhouse,
Garth, South Ronaldsay, Orkney, KW17 2TJ Tel: (44) 1856 831592 Email: info@dicklevens.co.uk
Check out Jims work at 'Jim Fogarty Graphics' Jim Fogarty Cletts, Eastside, South Ronaldsay, Orkney, KW17 2TJ Tel: (44) 1856 831741 Email:
Custom built, custom finished quality guitars - for those that want something 'a bit special'.
All artwork by Jim Fogarty, images and text are Copyright © Jim Fogarty 2002-2008. All rights reserved. All designs
and pictures by Dick Levens ©2000-2004 Dick Levens. All rights
reserved. All artwork shown on this website is protected by international copyright law. No image on this website may be used for any commercial or noncommercial purposes without prior written permission from the artist. |
