A few months ago I was admiring the custom woodburned guitar of a friend of mine, Steve Hickman. He plays it out at all his gigs, and it gets a lot of love and attention. (He also writes some damn good songs, so check him out here.) I asked him if he’d be willing to do some work on a guitar for our band that we could raffle off. He generously agreed to help us out because he’s such a phenomenal friend. Thank you, Steve!

I purchased a basic guitar building kit with an unfinished stratocaster body, and he went to work. We have a branding iron of our logo for other custom merch we make, so he used that to start the process. He put the logo on the bottom and carved around it to really make it pop. He then went to work on a design for the tail and the eye. He sent pictures as he was progressing, and we were continuously blown away. Finally, he detailed the headstock with “Born With the Horns." All in all, it took him a couple weeks in between all his other life stuff. 

Once he was done, we took it to Webb and Son’s Autobody in the great town of Gnawbone, Indiana. What a name, am I right? But our family has a fantastic business there, and you should stop in and buy a t-shirt. Brian is an expert painter, and I couldn’t imagine anyone better to bring the color to life for the dragontail. In the mix, he used several different pearls. These paints are outrageously expensive per ounce, and we’re privileged to use them. Real pearls are literally gound up and added to the paint to bring the shimmer and color-changing properties to life. He finished the job with a hard-as-nails autobody clear coat.  

Jared finished constructing the guitar with the wiring and other basic components, and Brian set it up to play for our next several gigs. It’s got a sweet tone, and we are going to be sad to see it go out the door when the raffle is over. In the meantime, you can still get your chance to win! Just email us at sustaynofficial@gmail.com

Check out the photos below to see how it came together.