Bill Wise at Charis just moved his shop about 5 miles down the road into a MUCH roomier, brighter facility. I had a chance to make a visit this morning and was pleasantly suprised!
With the added room, Bill has some new things on the horizon, the first being the unveiling of a new series of guitars called The Performance Series.
The intent is to build a more standard feature set in a little larger numbers that will allow customers to get a great personally crafted instrument at a great price. Custom features will be available at a slight upcharge. This first few are headed to Danny at Acoustic Pro Musician and He'll have a couple at Newport with him next month.
I played the Sitka/EIR in the pics below this morning and it was very, very nice, and it had just been strung up. I would have liked to had a month of daily play on that one!!;) The quality of woods are extremely good, no shortcuts there, just simply appointed. The binding on this one that appears to be Koa at first glance is actually T 'Zalam, or Mayan Walnut.
If you are headed to Newport/Miami, be sure and look Bill up.....really nice, personable guy who's building some great guitars!!
Sorry for the quality of the pics.....they weren't my best!
(http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/6736/perf1.jpg) (http://img87.imageshack.us/i/perf1.jpg/)
the light spots in the lower bout of this pic were reflections from hardware on a case....oops!
(http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/3994/audix006.jpg) (http://img39.imageshack.us/i/audix006.jpg/)
(http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/8346/audix003.jpg) (http://img13.imageshack.us/i/audix003.jpg/)
(http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1005/audix005.jpg) (http://img59.imageshack.us/i/audix005.jpg/)
(http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/6356/audix007.jpg) (http://img638.imageshack.us/i/audix007.jpg/)
(http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/1349/audix004.jpg) (http://img143.imageshack.us/i/audix004.jpg/)
Very nice...what's the price range on those?
sent you a PM...
:+1: Bill Wise builds premium guitars, and is one of the 3 (or is it 4) magic builders of SJ-bodies. The others are James Olson, Kevin Ryan and Dell Langejans. Phill Keagy plays his guitars as well.
I e-mailed him years ago, and he seems a very humble and pleasant chap.