b'issue for me, but there were other thoughts asbeen able to buy or cut thick planks of mahogany by well. In about 1994, the push to use alternativehand, but now I was trying to save the rain forests timbers was definitely growing, I had made oneand improve the guitars at the same time. I was even guitar from American Ash just to prove a point,able to use the offcuts from the walnut guitar backs and several from English Sycamore. Both timbersin the neck laminations, and when I tried a bit of ash are readily available and not likely to becomeleft over from making snooker cues for the centre threatened, but neither are they the most visuallysection of the necks, it looked really good and was interesting of woods or the most easily worked.fantastically strong. Many of the other alternative timbers would onlyI also used a new head shape, trying to find ever be available in very small quantities. I alsosomething that was unique to me, and not referring needed an alternative to mahogany for the necks,to the old Martin style headstock.Because of the because regulations and supplies were starting tomodern styling I used rather slimmer necks on both be a real issue for this timber.Mahogany is uniquemodels, and added a pickup system as standard. It in its strength, stability and ease of working, andall worked rather well and helped me move a little was one of the few timbers that had been availablebit more away from the Folk guitar world.in thick enough sections. I tried English Walnut, and it worked rather well. This led me to try it forBecause of the cutaway, the two new models guitar bodies as well.Walnut is the only Englishwere not the easiest to make and could not be hardwood that is big enough, interesting to look at,particularly cheap, so l made a simplified version and of good enough quality for guitar making, so itof the Alchemist without the cutaway and used was an obvious choice. It bends like a dream, andSapele instead of Walnut to keep the price down. so far at least, it doesnt dislike me.The book of names came out again, but I couldnt Trying to anticipate the time when Mahoganyfind inspiration and chose one simply because it would not be available in large enough sizes, Isounded good - Alexander. The name is used for made experiments with laminating thin sections ofthree characters in Shakespeare, so take your pick. different timbers together to make necks. Many ofThere is the line The Noble Dust of Alexander in my earlier guitars had this feature because I hadntHamlet, which I suppose does have some connection with guitar making.XentrixApart from Pack Leader and the FyldeHolden guitar collectionElectric, there have been a very smallSean and Paul Holden are related, Im not going to tell you how, partly because they number of solid body electric guitars mademake a bit of a game out of it, but also because I cant remember, and they are getting at Fylde. One of those belongs to Chrisfed up with me asking.Astley, of the Thrash Metal band Xentrix.Customers such as these two could keep a guitar maker in good spirits for quite a while Chris is Bob Astleys son, and Bill Astleys( Caol Ila perhaps ? - Good Spiritsget it?). nephew, both of whom were key players in the early years of Fylde. I babysat Chris andIts an impressive collection, about the same as Eric Bibb, Ritchie Blackmore or Gordon his sister Gillian once or twice.I find thatGiltraphard to imagine now. But thirteen is a very unlucky number, what on earth could they do about that?Ive just counted them again, there are fourteen. Thats OK then.80'