The Burl Beast is made from a single piece of mahogany with a poplar burl cap. The back has a belly carve and the front is shaped for the arm before the cap is attached. The burl is stabilised with epoxy to give a smooth surface and indentations made for the potentiometers. The mahogany is stained to highlight the grain and natural colours of the wood and the burl top is stained with an amber dye which emphasises and blends beautifully with the natural figure and burl patterns in the wood. The double cut horns of the beast are carved and the neck pocket is rounded for better access to the upper section of the fret board.
This guitar has a plain maple bolt on neck and pau ferro fretboard with the dual action truss rod. The truss rod access hole is decorated with aged copper leaf. Mother of Pearl or metallic rod markers with epoxy fill are used to mark the fret positions. The neck in custom versions of this guitar (as shown here) can be made from flamed maple. Hipshot locking tuners provide excellent tuning stability and wide Nickel-Silver fret wire is used and complemented with a hand-carved bone nut. The fret board comes with or without an inlayed gecko motif. The neck has 22 frets and uses a scale length of 25 inches or 635 mm. This scale length is mid-way between Gibson and Fender standards and introduces a balanced tone at concert pitch. The neck is stained a light amber colour and made to look "rustic" in keeping with the body colours and a satin oil finish enhances the grain of the wood.
The burl beast features zebra style (black and white) humbucker pickups from Iron Gear as standard. The rolling mill pickup in the neck position provides mellow tones, The hot slag pickup at the bridge is packs a punch and provides filthy power. Various wiring options are available, but a 5 position super-switch is used as standard. Position 1, 3 and 5 switches between neck, neck + bridge and bridge pickups. Positions 4 and 5 select inner and outer coils of the neck and bridge pickups that are in reverse phase to give a "quacky" sound often associated with Stratocasters. A more standard wiring with a simple 3-way switch can be used instead with push pull pots to coil split the Humbucking pickups.
A hipshot hardtailed bridge is used for this model. Pickups can be mounted directly to the body or with pickup surrounds such as the chrome ones used in the example shown here.
