Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))) and Travis Bean aluminium-necked guitars

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Here's a recent email from Gary:

I've been a religious follower of your blog the past couple years and I have a problem here that I'm sure you're used to getting millions of e-mails a day about. I've attached some pictures of a guitar played by Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))) and many other droney, experimentaly type projects. Note the T-shaped cutout on the headstock. It also appears that it has an aluminum bolt-on neck with a large tongue that fits into the body. And are the strings through the body and into the tongue (essentially the neck itself)? I don't see myself as anything close to an expert on guitar design but couldn't that offer some massive sustain? I recently bet a friend of mine that I could find out what it was before him so any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated. And any insights you might have into the guitars design (like me being ridiculously wrong for example) would be awesome.

Hi Gary

It's a Travis Bean - which were a forerunner to the metal-necked Kramers. You are quite correct about the construction of the guitar and yes - they are known for their massive sustain.

See the Guitarz archives for a Travis Bean "display guitar" (that looks cruelly butchered) and a little bit of info.

There's also a TB1000S on eBay right now:

Thin Lizzy's Brian Robertson can be seen playing a Travis Bean in some of the band's videos from the 1970s. I'm pretty sure that Bill Wyman played a Travis Bean bass in the Stones for a while too.

G L Wilson

NB: Please make sure you are reading this Guitarz post at guitarz.blogspot.com and not on a Scraper blog that copies posts without permission (and steals bandwidth) so as to profit from advertising. Please support original bloggers!

Travis Bean TB1000 display guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Travis Bean guitars were first produced in 1974 and utilised an aluminium neck design, with the neck set deep into the koa body beneath the pickups and bridge with the strings passing through the aluminium centre section for increased sustain.

The design later evolved in the early Kramer line of guitars, which similarly had aluminium necks. These differed from the Travis Bean design in that each neck was essentially a T-section with two fillets of wood along its length so as to approximate the feel of a traditional wooden neck.

This particular example is a one-off Travis Bean display guitar and will surely appeal to collectors of this brand. (It's hardly going to appeal to someone wanting a working guitar!)

According to the listing this guitar was "built by Travis Bean factory to demonstrate the design and build techniques of the legendary Travis Bean Guitar. This guitar was hand carried by Travis himself to several musical instrument trade shows and was set up in the offices of the California factory. It is complete with its very own hand crafted stand and traveling box. Was purchased from famed Travis Bean employee Obie."




G L Wilson

NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!