RA Guitars - Handmade in Maryland

10/06/2025

Some days you chisel on a brand new Charvel cuz the owner said so.

02/01/2025

The last year has been utterly nuts here so there have been few updates on this page. I've been backed up on quite a few projects, but they are being actively worked on now that I'm back in my house and the shop is somewhat back in order.

My apologies again to everyone who has been patiently waiting for anything.

Here's an LTD Phoenix 7 that originally came with a really tall Tune-O-Matic. It got a custom carbon fiber riser to bring the Evertune up to the correct height, and a matching custom backplate with some fancy extra details.

11/02/2023

Somedays, you even find time to work on your very own amp!

This was was hand-assembled from components by me about 10 or 12 years ago.

See the cracks in the rear plexiglass panel? It fell into a concrete floor when someone tripped over a cable at a rehearsal. At the time, I thought it had only killed a fuse and a power tube.

But it's never really sounded right since then. Rechecked the tubes and the bias the other day, but it's still breaking up with the volume on "1" when it should just be clean and loud until about 8, at which point it should be loud enough to kill most small mammals... but nope. Just farty and buzzy.

Poked around a little more and realized one of the power tubes was only pulling 10ma of current even tho the bias was set right, according to the other tube. Swapped tubes. Problem stayed on the same socket.

Checked voltage again... and hey, look at that. No voltage at all showing on pin 3 of that socket. No wonder it's not pulling any current - it's not getting any power to the plate.

So I double checked, even tho my heart already knew what was coming. Output transformer primary shows cold open in one leg and half the expected resistance on the other leg. Great.

So, to sum up - don't let your Plexi hit the floor unless you want to replace the output transformer, a cheap fuse, and a pair of expensive, obsolete power tubes.

07/31/2023

Fun fact... when I was setting up guitars for the Gibson Showroom and A&R, the gold top LP in this video is one of the first ones I sent out - straight to Mr. Campbell.

Get an inside look into Vivian Campbell's guitar vault - including Gary, Ricky, Cait, Casper, Mr. C, and Lily, 🎸🤘LISTEN TO DEF LEPPARD: https://UMe.lnk.to/...

05/03/2023

How it started vs. how it's going. I think it's going just fine.

1971 Kalamazoo-made Gibson SG.

Electronics are all original - pots date to early 1971 and all four match. Pickups are early T-tops with Patent Number stickers - and still have the "L" machine marks on the legs that everyone looks for on any PAF. Original covers are long gone - whoever "gilded" this thing with gold hardware replaced them with modern gold covers.

It'll be back in rocking order pretty soon with nickel hardware and hopefully I can scare up a suitable pair of nickel covers.

04/22/2023

Anyone who has been to the shop recently knows this is LONG overdue.

I got a military shop trailer from my buddy, Chris. Had him pull the box off the chassis, then we painted it to match the house, and he delivered it on his roll-off truck. He dropped it EXACTLY where it needed to go.

It is pre-wired with a 70-Amp circuit panel. All outlets are already working. Putting all the dust-makers in here to keep the main shop (and your guitar cases) more clean.

02/23/2023

Everybody just tears open perfectly good 2- conductor pickups to add a tap wire, right? :)

07/16/2022

Check this out!

Chris Davis rocking the LTD SN-1 HT that I did a "few" changes to. Installed a gold Evertune, and switched the tuners for gold, locking, open-gear Hipshots.

https://www.facebook.com/196595720474/posts/10166806457245475/

Formed in Los Angeles in 2004, The Ghost Inside is a metalcore band that includes ESP players Zach Johnson and Chris Davis. In the video for "...

07/16/2022

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04/02/2022

Do you need one of these? It is really the best way to be loud. There is no finer method of achieving loud than employing one or three of these. 10/10 highly recommend.

This utterly gorgeous cabinet somehow survived the last 42 years completely unscathed by time or roadies. The speakers inside are the original silver-sticker G12-65 Celestions - all with matching date codes to November 7, 1980. All cones are stamped 1777 in black. THESE ARE THE G12-65 SPEAKERS EV...

03/31/2022

Made a sign to test calibration on a few more CNC upgrades.

03/07/2022

Upgraded my CNC over the weekend with bigger motors, wider belts, higher and stronger Z axis, reinforced X/Y axis and a new stronger X axis, and a new spindle.

This is cutting aluminum 4x faster than I could manage with the old setup. And it's infinitely smoother - especially the angled clearance ramp it's cutting on this Evertune riser. It still goes thru a final micro cut to leave a smooth surface after this roughing pass - even tho what you are seeing here is the bottom.