This custom Peter Martin build takes a classic silhouette and pushes it somewhere unexpected.
The body is cut from a single, carefully selected piece of walnut, chosen for the depth and movement in its grain as much as its tone. Rather than a sprayed lacquer, it's finished with a hand-applied 50-layer oil finish built up in the manner of a French polish, but with oil rather than shellac, giving a pebble-smooth, tactile surface that never loses the sense that you're holding a natural wood instrument.
Electronics are voiced around a DiMarzio True Velvet in the bridge and a PAF-style Anniversary humbucker in the neck, wired in an inverted Peter Green-style out-of-phase configuration, with the addition of a 4-way switch.
Gold hardware throughout, anchored by a 6-saddle Gotoh bridge for accurate intonation and reliable tuning stability. The neck carries a comfortable 10" radius and 25.5" scale length, built for confident, familiar playability.
Specifications
- Body: One-piece walnut
- Finish: 50-layer hand-applied oil finish
- Neck: 25.5" scale, 10" radius
- Bridge pickup: DiMarzio True Velvet
- Neck pickup: PAF Anniversary-style humbucker
- Wiring: Inverted Peter Green-style, 4-way switch (series/parallel)
- Hardware: Gold
The story behind this build
This one didn't start out as a walnut and gold build at all. The original idea was a George Harrison rooftop rosewood body and silver hardware. But rosewood in the size needed for a one-piece body turned out to be eye-wateringly expensive, and a stunning single piece of walnut presented itself as the alternative.
Once walnut was in, rosewood-and-silver became walnut-and-gold. And once the material and hardware had flipped, it seemed only fitting to flip the rest of the concept too so the pickup layout followed suit, swapping the classic single-coil bridge for a humbucker because Keith Richards is the opposite of George Harrison... funny how things turn out.
