Beardsell Guitars

I love electric guitars. They were the reason I started making guitars but I wasn't too enamoured with the weight or the predictability of the solid body.

They don't play like guitars do—too much sustain and not enough resonance. While working at Songbird Music in Toronto I got to work on a lot of old Gretsch guitars – Dual and Sparkle Jets, 6120's and Country Gentlemen – hybrid archtops with some solid body construction. They weren't built so well but they had character. So I set about building guitars that mixed the best of both worlds: An arch top mounted on a rim that was a solid piece of wood hollowed out into an acoustic chamber. That's the 7E. More recently, the rim utilizes a bent-wood rim mounted to a center block, spherically arched flat-back. The pickups mounted through the back, tailpiece seated on adjustable posts keep the top open and lively. An adjustable damper keeps feed back at bay at higher volumes.

The JKS is a newer model. JKS stands for John K Samson, lead singer-songwriter of Winnipeg punk-folk heros "The Weakerthans". It re-imagines the chambered reversed cap Rickenbacker guitars of the 60's. This guitar is small and light and ready to rock.