Dana Sutcliffe's new shop and a custom Spectrum...

Hopefully this post will be a fun read for everyone.

My Wife and I had the opportunity to visit Dana in his new shop in Ardentown, Delaware.



Dana has moved into an excellent new shop. It really suits his needs with a nice large, clean, open studio-esque area for he and his helper Jeff to work in, a storage room, a woodworking room, a dedicated humidity controlled room, and other rooms to keep customer's guitars and other things. It's impressive, very clean and organized.

It was really good to see Dana again, it's a pleasure to visit and I'm glad to be somewhat close by. He's a great guy all around, a well cultured man of the world who's a master at this craft. Very personable and knowledgeable. I recommend him highly. There were a bunch of Fenders in his shop this time which he and Jeff were working on. Dana was filing some frets on a vintage Strat neck while Jeff was working on a '70 Tele. Dana said that all the Fender's were from the same guy. Things like this speak for themselves, that they'd send their gear to him for work. He is a Master Luthier after all.

We were talking about life and such and the conversation went to guitars. I'd mentioned that I'd been looking for a stoptail Westone Dana. "I have one" Dana said. "What? Really?!" I said. He sent Jeff into his storage room, a second later Jeff emerged with a black Westone Dana I (as in the catalogue) for me to see. So cool. I also mentioned wanting to find another Dana II. "I have a white one" Dana said. Jeff went into the storage room again and emerged with a white Dana II for me to see! I think he said that he doesn't even know what he has in there, that Jeff sometimes "finds" guitars in there. Wouldn't you like to have a room like that?!

I'd brought him my 1980-ish Electra X930 MPC for a nut filing. He commented on how Matsumoku did such great work, and also on how nice the guitar's condition was (the thing's unplayed). He said that the Electra MPC effects were later used in the Crate amps, and that the MPC effects were made with planned obsolescence.

He showed me a couple of his Scoops. Man they're good looking guitars. The white strat style Dana Scoop Custom from his website was there, really neat.

Something on the other side of the room caught my eye. It was just laying on a table, something else that Jeff "found" in the storage room. It will be of interest to you guys. THIS thing...







It's a Dana custom Westone Spectrum. He said I could photo it, so I sat it on top of my Electra case for a quick photo shoot.

This Westone is covered in Anaconda snakeskin. Yes, real anaconda. It's a heavy guitar, Bendmaster Deluxe trem, chunky frets, and probably the best truss rod cover ever. I fell in love. Grab your spandex and hair spray people, you'll want to be prepared for this.












Dana told me that the snakeskin avenue became available to SLM through a relationship with a local boot maker. Makes sense! He also said that the plywood body density helped with the guitar tone in conjunction with the snakeskin. I love that it was just laying there. How cool is that?

Anyhow, it was really great to see Dana again. My Wife Raychel said that I was like a kid in a candy store. And I guess I was. If you've never had a master luthier work on one of your guitars, it's certainly worth it. Instead of dumping more money into just another guitar, send one of your favorites to Dana for the treatment. He'll make it come alive for you, I recommend him without hesitation. But don't take my word for it, send him something to work on. Here's his website Click here for his website, or go to http://www.danamusic.com

Awesome, looks like you had a great time! That's a wicked Spectrum, I heard they made a few with real snakeskin, love the headstock plate. Sounds like quite the learning experience, what a cool time. Didn't know they used MPC effects in Crate amps but It makes sense since it did become Crate/Electra. Thanks for sharing Chad, lucky you!

The snakeskin guitars and Bass models are awesome . I owed one of the very few pytho covered Basses ad wish I had kept it. This one is really unique ad an awesoe find. thaks for the photos. wish I had that one.

Sounds like a good day.

Very interesting to say the least.


Cheers Chad

Thanks for sharing this, eh!!

Did Dana by any chance mention me, Chad? How did he like the T shirt I got you to make for him?

Hoax

Nice story Chad. Thanks for taking the time to put it in the forum.

Um, is that a pink Anaconda or is just happy to see me?

Plywood?
A plywood bodied Spectrum is already special, even w/o the snakeskin.

But the idea that you can get great tones out of a plywood guitar matches my experience with my '89 Challenger...still one of my favorite guitars. I had it a year before I realized it was plywood!

You guys make me laugh out loud!

SLM is the reason that Pink Anaconda's have gone extinct.

Was a great trip for sure. I'll have him work on more of my instruments in the future.

Nice story,

Looks like Dana tried to register here and had a problem: Dana Music

Good to see you in the Forum again Neil.
You gonna stay around a bit?