Rarebird Electrohawk

This guitar was custom built by Luthier Philip Bruce Clay of Rarebird Guitars. It was probably made in the late eighties or early nineties.
It's a 22 fret semi hollow poplar body, maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. Its shape is similar almost to a '59 Dano, but with a much larger top horn. The guitar is finished in red with a white pearloid pickguard that matches really well. The finish is cracking a little bit, but that's to be expected of any guitar over 20 years old. Plus, it gives it a nice vintage look and feel. It has a pair of Rio Grande pickups, a single coil in the neck and a humbucker in the bridge, three way switch, one volume, one tone. The bridge is a tune-o-matic with a stop tailpiece, and it has gotoh tuners. It has medium frets, and a 25.5" scale neck.

This guitar is one of my preferences, despite my large collection (about 15 guitars, from Ibanez Artists, Hamers, and Les Pauls, to Custom Shop Strats and Hollow Body Jazz Guitars.) I play all kinds of music, heavy rock, jazz, blues, and instrumental indie rock (post-rock). I play it through a Carvin Stagemaster 212 100 watt tube amp, a Fender Blues Deluxe, a Marshall JCM 900, and a Vox AC30. It sounds incredible on every amp, and works really REALLY well with my Boss DD20 delay, especially on the neck pickup. It gets a very warm sound, and with the gain cranked up a good bit gets a nice fat crunch that I really like. It doesn't get death metal heavy by any means, but it doesn't need to. I really love the sound from this guitar, it's got tight low end and a nice singing treble end.

The intonation was originally set up for 9's, but I play 10's, so I of course wanted to change the strings. Bruce obliged and threw on a set of D'Addario Pure Nickel 10's This threw the intonation off a little bit, but Bruce took it upon himself to do the intonation right there on the spot for free. It's spot on now, and the action is perfect for me. The pickups were set up the way they should be, the bridge higher than the neck, and the pickups are tilted slightly to vary the pole height.
The only "flaw" I guess would be the cracks in the finish, but really I don't care. That happens to every guitar, it gives it charm.

This guitar is durable as hell. I've dropped it a few times on stage, tossed it around, etc. I'm a little crazy on stage, so it's hard to find a guitar that'll withstand the abuse, but this guitar does a great job. The neck is incredibly durable, which seems to be a trend with Bruce's guitars. The finish has only chipped once, when it hit a solid concrete floor, but every other mishap has been without consequence so far. Everything on this guitar is sturdy, the hardware hasn't rusted a bit, the knobs and jack aren't coming loose, the strap buttons don't wiggle, it's great. I wouldn't use it without a backup, of course though, because I break strings WAY too much to do that, but if I didn't have a backup, I wouldn't be too concerned at all.

Bruce is a great guy, he really took the time to make sure I got everything I wanted with this guitar. He's usually pretty busy, but he always finds time to fit me in for setups. I'll definitely have him build me one like this one sometime soon.

I've been playing for about 5 years now, and like I said I have quite a collection of guitars and amps. I feel totally satisfied with this guitar, no regrets at all! If somebody were to steal it, I'm sure I'd go the extra mile to track them down. If worst came to worst and I couldn't find it, I'd have Bruce build me another! I really love the way this guitar looks, it has this really retro indie look to it, it makes me feel awesome on stage. I played it against many of the guitars in Bruce's shop. It was a really hard decision, they all had such unique and awesome sounds, it took me about 2 hours of playing one after another to finally decide on my baby. I wish it had a toggle kill switch, but I talked to Bruce and he's going to wire one in for me!