Blog
It’s been said that the pen is mightier than the sword. Couple the pen with the axe and you have something truly mighty. Go on a journey with the guitar maker, exploring the vast and captivating world of custom luthiery.
From exotic woods to exotic builds, this blog aims to inspire, entertain and educate guitarists looking to learn and be part of the supportive Lucas Guitar community. Read, watch and share your thoughts with likeminded individuals.
Choose the right electric guitar strings
Lucas Guitar Video Blog No. 9 Do you fall into the trap of changing string brands, types and/or gauges without understanding the potential effects of doing so? If so this video is for you! There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to choosing the optimum... read more
Intonation – the elephant in the room
Lucas Guitar Video Blog No. 8 Often trivialised and misunderstood, having excellent intonation is key to having a guitar that stays in tune and is a joy to play. Learn more about this (not so) mysterious art here as Richard addresses the many considerations and angles... read more
Pickups: How to Choose?
Lucas Guitar Video Blog No. 7 The number of pickup choices today is mind-boggling. With so much marketing noise and mythology surrounding this critical guitar product, how can you find the best pickup set for you? Watch this video and gain key pickup pointers that... read more
Custom Guitars Solve Problems
Lucas Guitar Video Blog No. 6 These days the label, “custom guitar” can mean just about anything – but to be truly custom, a guitar must be built with one player’s best interests in mind. Watch and learn how the best custom guitars are built not only to look and... read more
Understanding Electric Guitar Fret Sizes
“The problem is choice…” Guitars have come a long way since their embryonic beginnings. Like everything else these days, when it comes to guitar options there are just so many choices at our disposal. Electric guitar fret sizes are no exception. In The Matrix, Keanu... read more
Introducing Antagonist
Lucas Guitar Video Blog No. 5 Meet Antagonist, a bespoke take on a classic heavy rock/metal guitar shape. In this vlog Richard talks about how he took the customer’s brief and transformed it into the fine art piece now blazing a trail around Australia as a... read more
Compound radius fretboards – what’s all the fuss?
One of the key factors separating low-end guitars from high-end models is the ‘compound radius’ fretboard. At first the concept of compound radius seems a little confusing, but its nature and application are actually quite simple once understood. The... read more
Technology for Musicians (T4M) headless tremolo
Lucas Guitar Video Blog No. 4 In this video, Richard gives a detailed overview of the bespoke Italian-made Technology for Musicians (T4M) headless tremolo, an upgraded homage to gear used on the iconic Steinberger guitars of the 80s. You’ll also learn about... read more
What Is A Custom Guitar?
Lucas Guitar Video Blog No. 3 What makes any guitar a ‘custom guitar’? In this video blog Richard discusses the key benefits around custom choices available to electric guitar players. Watch and learn about Richard’s experiences with different types of fretwire,... read more
Custom Guitar Maker’s Mini-Workshop Tour
Lucas Guitar Video Blog No. 2 Take Richard’s mini-workshop tour as he talks about some of his favourite hand and power tools and how they fit into the custom guitar making process. From olde-world hand-beaten rasps to chisels to spokeshaves, and cutting-edge modern... read more
Introducing The Custom Guitar Maker
Lucas Guitar Video Blog No. 1 In Lucas Guitar’s first-ever video blog, Richard speaks about his experiences in walking the uncommon path of becoming a custom guitar maker. From his early musical beginnings, to the business’s primitive beginnings in a carpeted... read more
The Guitar Setup. What is it and why is it important?
“If you want to have your guitar performing at its peak, the setup is vital.” Every week I get numerous calls, emails and messages from players who want their guitar to play better. Either they want it to play like it did when it was new, or they’ve just bought... read more
Underwound or Overwound | Which Pickup Is Best For Me?
“Do you want more power, or more definition? More bite or more warmth?” Pickups. The heart and soul of an electric guitar. Shrouded in mythology and widely misunderstood. Two of the buzzwords you see frequently discussed in guitar articles and forums are underwound... read more
5 smart ways to save time and money on guitar repairs
1. Keep your strings clean Sounds obvious, right? Yet I bet you, like me, at the end of a long rehearsal or gig think, “I know I should clean my strings… ah I’ll just do it next time.” If you’re not guilty of this sin, congratulations! Keep it... read more
Lucas Guitar Goes All In
On Wednesday November 4th, Lucas Guitar will begin opening 5 days a week. It’s been a long time coming. Eight years of designing, prototyping, testing and refining. Four years operating as a small cottage-industry player in the guitar marketplace. Making an... read more
Richard Lucas – A day in the life of the guitar maker
Guitar making is a glamorous art, right? At the very least it is interesting, not a dull moment! Here’s a breakdown of my Saturday. 6:30am Eyes open. Silence in the house. When you have a 10-month-old you’re never sure how much tranquility you’re... read more
Inspiration strikes at Lucas Guitar
If you read last week’s blog, you probably know how chuffed I am that the cold winter has nearly departed, making way for the joy of spring. Around my neighbourhood cherry trees have come out in the most amazing white and pink blossoms; there are entire streets... read more
Get some Spring into your guitar playing!
It’s here! A change in season brings with it a welcome change in our outlook, and already I can sense by the number of recent custom build enquiries and guitars dropped off for repairs that the inspiration to play is returning with the departure of our winter... read more
The Death of Plastic
So you spent a few thousand dollars on a guitar – only to realise that your prized instrument is covered in plastic. Volume/tone knobs, pickup surrounds, pickup bobbins, bindings, switch tips, tuner buttons, pickguards, cover plates… it’s like buying a Bentley... read more
Eco-Luthiery: 7 Cool Ways to Help The Planet and Have Fun Doing It
Although perhaps not widely acknowledged, guitar building has traditionally been in many ways an environmentally irreverent art form. Mass single-species deforestation, solvent-based finishing, the widespread use of plastics in construction, overseas shipping,... read more
Present, Past and Future Adventures in Guitar Land
Chrysós Build Progress If you’ve had your eye on my Facebook posts this weekend, you may have seen a couple of key images revealing what’s going on at Camp Lucas Guitar right now: I’ve finished making templates for my current build; and I have... read more
10 Tools You Wouldn’t Associate With Guitar Making
Some things are just made for each other, like bacon and eggs, dogs and bones, ride-on lawn mowers and people to ride them. With this rationale, upon entering the realm of the luthier there are many quintessential tools and machinery you would expect to see. Bandsaws,... read more
It’s Great To Be Australian – If You’re a Guitar Maker
Following on from my previous edition, I can report that the foundation stone of African Mahogany has been beautifully laid for my latest build, Chrysós. For those into mythology I guess I could say that this will be a reverse-journey back across the Styx. A tree is... read more
Chrysós: new beginnings
As an aspiring guitarist, the adage “perfect practice makes perfect” was one of the best mantras I came across. As a guitar maker, Michael Jordan’s quote on fundamentals really rings true for me. In a world where skilled manual labour has largely... read more
Back with one hell of an axe to grind
… oh my goodness Dear Reader, It’s been a seriously long time between blogs, posts, tweets, carrier pigeons and the like. I would almost guarantee that everyone reading this has had to pull up stumps and move all of their worldly possessions at one time or... read more
Axe Appeal
What is it about the guitar that makes it so appealing to so many? Is it the sound? The look? Perhaps it’s more about the association with the great art and expression that have flowed through the guitar since it became part of public consciousness more than a... read more
Quality comes at a price
Often I have customers bring me entry‑level guitars to be set up and have general repairs carried out: reincarnate dead pickups, replace dodgy volume pots or crackly jacks. In many cases these inexpensive guitars look nearly as impressive as their more expensive... read more
Pick Up Your Tone!
One of the major changes afoot at Lucas Guitar over the course of this year has been a move to build all of the pickups we fit to our custom guitars ourselves. Not only does this mean that we can be more responsive to the needs of our clients, but also we can be... read more
Natural Finishes
There are many things that attract me to natural timber finishes. Here’s a short list: Quality. There’s nowhere to hide your mistakes under a natural finish. The flipside to this is that some timbers are inherently difficult to work with and minor... read more
A new month, new project, new website
And the inaugural edition of the Lucas Guitar Blog. This newly-created space is an opportunity for you to get into the headspace of the builder, get a feel for how we ‘roll’ here, and learn some interesting stuff about guitars and what we’re up to at the... read more
And continue on the journey towards owning the custom electric guitar of your dreams.
