The Notable Guitar: Waghorn Guitars
Custom L5-S Style (2024)
Waghorn Guitars is a UK-based custom shop creating high-end handmade acoustic and electric guitars and basses to order. In this Notable Guitar, we are featuring a unique instrument built for one of Tom Waghorn’s customers, Mark Jasen. The guitar is a custom version based on the L5-S style that was discontinued decades ago.
The Backstory
According to Tom, Mark asked him, after building him a mini jumbo acoustic, if he was interested in building him a custom electric based on the Gibson L5-S, which has been out of production for over 40 years. He was always a fan of this model, and its deluxe appointments such as block inlays and premium multiple ply binding throughout. But, having tried an L5-S at Gruhn's in Nashville, Mark commented on how uncomfortable it was to play.
The weight, resulting from a carved rock maple top and back, and the thin sides made it uncomfortable to play sitting down, but also extremely unbalanced. Mark asked if it was possible to build a similar looking guitar without all of the balance issues.
Tom said he could build it, but would have to give some thought about how he would achieve a perfectly balanced guitar, especially one with a larger body than a Les Paul for example. The first thing to go was the carved maple back, so he suggested a chambered lightweight mahogany body, with more conventional deep sides for more stability and comfort.
To avoid overly heavy or light weight neck woods, they decided on a flamed maple, padauk and American black walnut laminated neck, for strength and stability, stunning looks, but also balancing the weight of the body. Mark also requested 24 frets on this build, so making it with a neck-thru construction with carved away heel, and rear horn comfort chamfers which allow for easy access to the top frets. The guitar boasts a master grade quilted maple carved top, AAA grade ebony fingerboard with mother of pearl block inlays, and custom Art Deco style headstock inlay, lightweight Schertler open back tuners with ebony buttons, Seymour Duncan pickups, a Graphtech piezo loaded bridge, and Acousti-Phonic preamp system.
The guitar was completed in March 2024
Comment from the Guitar Owner
“Tom’s version is a marvel of guitar engineering. It’s a 24-fret neck-thru 25.5” scale that pays homage to the original but is thoroughly modern. It has a belly cut to let the guitar sit nicely against my body. It has a beveled cutaway and a compound fretboard radius (12-16”) to make the upper 24-fret register easy to reach and play. He included piezo bridge elements to let me get acoustic-electric-blended sounds. The guitar is chambered to make it more lightweight, and the guitar is completely weight balanced. The finish in the picture is not retouched in any way. It’s exactly what it looks like in real life. Spectacular.” – Mark Jasen
About Tom Waghorn in His Own Words
I started repairing musical instruments under the tuition of luthier Phil Davidson of Davidson Instruments in early 1996 whilst working for Hobgoblin Music in Bristol. A year or so later, Phil helped me design and build my first acoustic guitar, which gave me the bug to keep building more and more. By March 2000, I went into business making a range of mandolin family instruments for UK based businesses such as Hobgoblin Music and The Music Room as well as building acoustic guitars for private customers.
My heart was really in guitar building, and I was building a good reputation, so I decided to concentrate fully on guitars for my own interest, and for financial reasons. I was a keen electric guitar player, and after selling my best electric to a regular customer, I needed to replace it, so I built my first electric in 2004. I got the bug for a second time, and built more and more.
At this point, I was operating from Treblerock Music in Bristol, a popular guitar shop, where I started to gain a large customer base for repairs, setups and custom guitars. The workload was getting overwhelming, so I took on a couple of apprentices to help with the setups and repairs, so I could concentrate more on the custom builds. We soon outgrew the room out back of the guitar shop and moved to our current location in 2008.
Shortly after, I took on another apprentice to help me with the growing order book for custom guitars, and we spent a lot of time designing a new range of electric guitars, where our most popular models like the Sauria, Corax and Kronos were born. In around 2013, I had a call from Alex Hutchings — an incredible artist who's worked with Boss, Jam Tracks Central, and Steven Wilson to name just a few. We had a conversation about the possibility of designing him a signature model guitar to his requirements.
I was very excited and extremely humbled about this opportunity, and we got started quickly on the design elements with Alex's requirements, such as unfettered access to the 24th frets, balance and the lowest action. After some early trials and experiments, we created the AH6, which was Alex's guitar of choice for many years. Because of Alex's popularity, it showcased the Waghorn brand to many of his followers and we started receiving more orders from around the world, not only for the AH6, but also for our other models and bespoke custom orders.
Learn more about Waghorn Guitars at: waghornguitars.com
If you have a recommendation for The Notable Guitar, reach out to us via email at gbworld@guitar.business or call us at +1 888-777-2404.