Going to meet with Dana Sutcliffe.

I'm taking my Dana Ltd. III to see her designer, Mr. Dana Sutcliffe. I'll be meeting with him tomorrow. He's a master Luthier in Deleware. I want to ask him about his workings with Westone, his design ideas for the Dana guitars, and about the DSR-5. I'm excited, it will be fun! Just wanted to let everyone know.

Notes Chad, lots and lots of notes...

I'm talkin' 'bout "dragging-the-church-secretary-along" notes here...

+1... anything else is instant banning!!

This is why God invented camcorders!

Hopefully, The (one and only) Chad also managed to bag a few prototypes

Hey guys! Alright, I'm back and excited.

Lotsa talking, the guitar got the master treatment, and learned a lot.

I can't tell it all on here, due to a particular forum member we have, but I learned a lot about Westone, their business practices, and dealings with Dana. Great stuff. Excerts from the visit...

My Wifey and I arrived at Dana's last Thursday. It's back in the woods in Deleware, at a shop that used to produce guitar kits. Dana runs it now. He's a Master Luthier of great wit, skill, and energy. Absolute pleasure to meet and speak with.

He has a nice shop, it's very lived in and he's working hard in it. Bits of wood, guitars, and tools everywhere. There was a Dana Scoop in pieces, several Les Pauls, an old Strat, a cool resonator, a lute, busted up Guild acoustic, and Jerry Lee Lewis's guitar player's guitar, which will be going to the Jerry Lee Lewis museum when Dana is done restoring it. Pretty cool.

He opened the case and you should've seen his face, "Wow, it's a Westone " he said with shock! "Hadn't worked on one of these in 20 years!" he said. He was delighted to see the thing. Long story short, he rebuilt the guitar and rehumidified her. Sounds amazing now, sustain is so much better and feels like a million bucks.







Turns out that my guitar is NOT a Dana III Ltd.
It's the Dana II Pro, sans the Kahler Spyder.
He recognized it right away, saying "that's a Dana II, should have a Kahler Spyder on it". Who knew? He says that my guitar is "great quality, it's a Matsumoku made in Japan". I thought it was MIK! So glad it's a Mat. My personal Dana II Pro was the earliest model made of Dana II Pro. He said that my guitar (specifically) was designed and created for a dealer in the US. He was real surprised to see it.


Notes for the good of the forum, from Dana:
Westone made a lot of changes during production. This accounts for the many oddities on guitars that seem to pop up often. This is why we find the same model that are slightly different from one another. We already knew that...

Deals were made from many different suppliers for these guitars. See above... If something was a better deal for Westone, it made its way into production until a better deal came along.

Only Matsumoku could produce a neck like on my Dana II and many others, which is a nicely sawn single piece of lumber (neck and head one piece) without the scarf joint. Korea couldn't do that. The wood and labor was only good enough at Matsumoku.

The DSR-5 is Dana's exclusive. The Dana II has three knobs, and all three knob DSR-5 models should have the same layout as follows: one volume knob, one tone knob that excites the amp's preamp, and the amazing mid range knob that is good for 1.2K. The tone knob that excites the preamp was designed for the old 80's and older amps that needed the push. Modern amps don't need it as much.

The neck on the Dana guitars were modeled after Dana's 1965 Stratocaster. He loved the neck profile, and duplicated it on the Dana guitars.

Many things were changed from Dana's designs and approvals to production. Some changes with Westone, where Mr. Presley would change things due to reasons above. Alvarez did that as well. Regarding Alvarez, the triple coils weren't approved.


Check this out... SO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!











So yeah, over all it was a great experience.

I'll be taking questions to forward to Dana. Send them to me and I'll make a master list for him. Now remember, he didn't work with Westone the whole time, just from 88 to 90.

Oh, well done, that man!! Great story and nice details!

The Chad wrote: he didn't work with Westone the whole time, just from 88 to 90.

Curious - if he only worked with them from 88, but the Matsumoku factory closed in February 87 (According to the monument where it used to be), how can your Dana be a Matsumoku guitar?

Nice photo Chad - Love your red sweat shirt!!

Hoax

midhilis wrote:Curious - if he only worked with them from 88, but the Matsumoku factory closed in February 87 (According to the monument where it used to be), how can your Dana be a Matsumoku guitar?

Very good question, wondered that myself..."Built in the fall 1988" too according to his signature on the headstock, so that doesn't really even allow for a possible brief overlap from Mats to MIK facilities.
Made from Mats parts possibly?

Barry wrote:

midhilis wrote:Curious - if he only worked with them from 88, but the Matsumoku factory closed in February 87 (According to the monument where it used to be), how can your Dana be a Matsumoku guitar?

Very good question, wondered that myself..."Built late 1988" too according to his signature on the headstock, so that doesn't really even allow for a possible brief overlap from Mats to MIK facilities.
Made from Mats parts possibly?

In past posts Tom P. had stated that they moved the whole kit-n-kaboodle to Fuji for a time before Saehan, including the factory staff if my memory serves. Exactly when it was all out of Japan was never included in his posts.

Alot of the models were finished at SLM in the Custom Shop as well now that my synapses are warming up, again with Matsumoku stock left from the factory. That also was occurring beginning in 1987 (again if my memory serves).

In the end we are just debating how many angels can dance on a pin point when trying to pin down anything from 2/87 into 1988.


Just my 2¢'s...

hoax wrote:
Nice photo Chad - Love your red sweat shirt!!

Hoax

Thanks. Just got it.

And about the Matsumoku dates, I'll ask Dana. Some were assembled in the US, from Mat parts.

Thanks for sharing! Great story and telling photographs. I also like the T-shirt!

This is impressive Chad! In particular the way in which Dana S. remembers all these details.

beavis wrote:This is impressive Chad! In particular the way in which Dana S. remembers all these details.

I know, impressed me too! He was VERY involved, and it was his "baby" so to speak, so I can understand how he would be. This was his first Dana, before Alvarez and consequently before the Scoops which made him real famous.

Matsumoku history is rough to get a great handle on, hopefully Dana can clear it up some for me regarding his involvement.