Why?

I designed my first solidbody electric guitar back in 2003 , the Stinger, a double cutaway mahogany body with maple top and a set neck. As I was mainly making archtop guitars at that time, electric guitars weren’t really my focus back then, and it wasn’t until 2011 that I had my first go at making a bolt-on neck electric, a Strat-style guitar. Immediately proving quite popular, I started making S-, T- and JM style guitars under the names ToneSurfer, ToneTwister and ToneJuggler. I always approached all of these instruments with the same philosophy and made the bodies and necks myself from scratch. But at a certain point I started wondering why I was making copies of other guitars, putting my name on them and putting enormous amounts of time into making everything myself while those types of bodies and necks were readily available. Heck, customers probably didn’t even know or care that I made all of those parts myself. Granted, those models are popular for a reason, but as a luthier, you kind of want an identity of your own, make your instruments recognisable as something unique. Some builders go all out and make outrageous designs, I decided I wanted to stay closer to one of the ‘classic’ guitars, one that I think pleases a lot of guitarists, and set out to design my own shape. The basis of the Pleiades Series was born!

Pleiades, the idea

While drawing the new model, I had the idea to design it in such a way that I could use the same shape for a couple of different styles of guitars. The initial ideas for a line-up were to have a bolt-on neck model, a set neck model and a hollowbody of some sort. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised there were more options, finally settling on 7 different models, and that’s where my interest in astronomy came into play. 

Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters, is a star cluster of which the seven brightest stars are visible with the naked eye in the night sky. These seven stars are part of Greek mythology and are named Maia, Alcyone, Electra, Merope, Asterope (or Sterope), Taygete and Celaeno. For the Pleiades  Series, each of the 7 different models is named after one of the sisters, and has a complete unique set of characteristics, modeled after some of the most iconic guitars in history. It’s not just a matter of different pickups, controls or vibrato, they are all designed differently from the ground up. The only thing they all share is purely the body outline, the only variation there being body size, as there will be a few models that have a slightly larger body.

Pleiades, the models

At the time of writing, I only have the complete details of the first two models of the series, Maia and Alcyone. These were already designed before I temporarily quit building guitars in 2022. 

Maia is my interpretation of one of the first solidbody electric guitars, at least, one of the first that was a big commercial success: the Telecaster. Featuring an alder or Swamp Ash body, bolt-on maple neck with maple or rosewood fingerboard and two single coil pickups as standard, this model surely lends itself for some variations with different bridges and pickups.

The second one in the line up will be Alcyone, another interpretation of a classic: a mahogany body with a figured maple top, glued-in mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard and a choice of humbucker or single coil pickups.

Plans for the third model, Elektra, are being drawn up and work on the first prototype will soon start. Can you guess what iconic guitar this one will be modeled after?

Keep an eye on our Instagram page for more info on upcoming Pleiades models!