My guitars are mostly leisure instruments, but some are grafters.

The Soloist is the main grafter; a real workhorse. I’ve had it 18 years & it feels like a part of me.
I’m trying to spec up the Deuce to become a grafter too (it’s cheap). It will never be anything like as fine as the Soloist but I just like it for some reason.

The elderly Washburn G5V is a practice model. It has been played more than any other guitar, and it shows. Both The Soloist & the G5V have significant ruts worn into every fret through nearly 20 years of constant playing.

Both these guitars have rosewood fingerboards. This is why I prefer ebony. My 40 year old Fylde has an ebony fingerboard with no sign of wear. When I used to play solo, I gigged the Fylde (acoustic) quite a bit too.

I didn’t manage to sell the G5V, so decided to make a project of it. I’ve hacked the body down to a much smaller new shape. I may try to fret level it myself if I can get some files ground & modified for the task.

The Elite has been gigged but I struggle getting a usable sound on stage. Its overwound active PUs are clean but muddy. By this I mean the signal is crystal clear (great for recordings) but very bass biased. Yes, it’s really for metal. On the plus side, it plays like a dream, and it’s got an ebony fingerboard!

I am looking to sell the Jackson Elite. I will try e-bay with a £700 reserve. If it doesn’t make that I will treat it as another project and disrespect the design by removing the nasty Seymour Duncan PUs and replacing them with something sensible. Someone suggested just removing the active circuit, but I wouldn’t have a clue where to begin. Maybe Simon Jones would advise & do this for me?

The PRS will also work for a living. I bought this at the Exeter shop I visited with Steve Perrett in February. I should not have bought it at all. I swore I would never buy another guitar with a trem. However, once I had played it, there was no way it wasn’t coming home with me. So I changed the .009 strings for .010s, made the truss rod adjustment and set about blocking up the trem cavity. It’s now good to blow.

I have gigged the Yamaha Silent (classical) a couple of times and recorded with it (Papa & the Sky). It’s a weird guitar, but immensely practical. I kept it at Jan’s place so I could practice at weekends when I was there. Since Jan died last year, it has been brought home. It had broken a string at some point and I have not had the inclination to re-string it. It’s been 7 months now. Somebody said recently. If you haven't used it in 6 months, get rid of it. Hmmm...

The Hofner J17 (jazz) and the Camps (classical) are strictly recreational. They are both a challenge to play. The J17 has high tension, and the Camps a high action. They are pampered lambs with nary a scratch on them.