M*3 guitars.

[Nokie Van Reinhardt]

These look real interesting. The demo on YouTube sounds great and even at $1500 is a bargain compared to Ed Roman. http://www.m3california.com/guitars/index.html

[Veenture]

These look real interesting. The demo on YouTube sounds great and even at $1500 is a bargain compared to Ed Roman. http://www.m3california.com/guitars/index.html

Yeah, that is Matt [raygun85] of m-3 California and also fellow Forum member

[raygun85]

We've never had such a run of bad luck like we've had trying to get this guitar onto the market. Some of it was simply planning...we've run into a few snags on the first two prototypes and ended up redesigning the necks. Same goes for the vibrato. We've changed the style of bridge a couple of times before settling on the good old roller bridge we all know and love. And a lot of aesthetic features. Actually, looking back on everything, we got a little ahead of ourselves. We were still in the design stage when we announced our plans. We thought we were closer to putting them on the market than we really were. I can't promise any specific time frame but I will say that we are getting VERY close. We're taking a hiatus on pickup production so we can tend to some of the irons that we've had on the back burner, such as the 63 AM. We also were a three-man operation but we've been scaled back to just my dad and I over the past few months. (Unless you count Tom, who does all of our foundry work on the aluminum parts.) Soon we'll be training a couple of guys to help us keep pace with our pickup production and work on bodies and necks in the shop. I know some of you have actually said you trust us and would like to order one even before we finish our final prototype, but we'd hate to take your orders (not to mention your money) and start fixing the gremlins while working on YOUR guitar, that would only delay the build process. We want to get all the kinks worked out first so we can be sure that we're not offering an inferior product.

Anyhow, base prices will start at $1,499. As with our pickups, discounts for forum members when they're first made available. Hopefully soon!
http://guitars.m3california.com/

[Nokie Van Reinhardt]

Well I'm sure going to be interested when you get the bugs worked out.

[oipunkguy]

Matt, do you still want me to give you specs on the mosrite humbuckers?

[raygun85]

Yeah, email them over if you already have them. If not, still no big hurry. We have a lot of irons in the fire right now. It looks like the 63 American project has been resurrected and is back with a vengeance! Again, I hate to start naming dates but I think we'll be unveiling it very soon and getting ready to start taking orders. We're also working on a custom lefty vibrato unit for Olav, which we'll make those available too once we finally have the finished molds. (We'll probably start offering lefty versions of the 63 AM too.) We still have that 60s rock band that we're working with on a custom signature model. And my dad and my uncle (who pretty much tell me what to do) have commissioned me to design all kinds of new pickups. The humbuckers are on the list my friend, I promise you that. Don't know when we'll get to them but we will eventually.

[raygun85]

This was the only body not damaged in the storm back in January. Ironically, it was the first one we made. We really liked the grain on it so we had set it aside with the intention of doing something special for the finish. We were going to glue up some more lumber and make a whole different one after the storm but we decided to just use this body so we can get it done. The neck is completely different from the original build photos, we changed the degree of the headstock to lessen the string break angle and improve tuning stability.



Here's a picture of the 63 American prototype, we always assemble the prototypes pre-finish just to make sure the neck and body fit together right and then we decided to go ahead and throw the vibrato, tuners, and bridge on there so we could test it out a little bit. No sense in wasting time finishing it if it isn't going to play right. We were very unhappy at first because -just like the two that came before it -it would not stay in tune! It was having the same issue that a lot of people lament over the Fillmores and some of the Hallmarks going sharp, which to me, is as baffling as it is exasperating. We almost gave up. We put the thing under a magnifying glass (literally!) and studied it for hours. Tuning, retuning, adjusting the neck and bridge, testing the vibrato...Finally, we pinpointed the problem at the string-guide and zero fret, there is too much metal-to-metal friction. We did some filing on the string guide and it started to stay in tune better, then we added some graphite nut lubricant to the string guide and the zero fret and voila! Now we can't get the thing to go OUT of tune!

Personally, I believe (as I did from the beginning) that a graphite nut would improve overall tuning stabilitiy on these guitars. But I have to admit that applying the lubricant each time we change the strings seems like a very small price to pay in order to keep the vintage looks. That being said, we will continue with our original plans to offer these guitars with a choice of graphite or metal string guide. We will beging applying the finish next week. I want to paint it red, my dad wants to do sunburst...I guess we'll wait and see! Either way, the guitar is mechanically sound. I think we've got it just about where we want it. Again, I hate to start throwing out dates but we may start taking orders as early as June...MAYBE....

[MWaldorf]

Matt, that looks great! I wonder if the earlier string guide styles, either the wood or the additional fret would be more or less prone to tuning issues. I put a bit of graphite on the bridge of my MeshuggaMark every time I change the strings, totally worth it for the tone.

I'm looking forward to seeing this progress!

[raygun85]

You know...I'm really not sure about the tuning problem Mel. I will say that the roller saddles work beautifully and do their job extremely well. The vibrato stays in tune as good as any normal Mosrite vibrato (which we patterned it after), but the nut I'm just not sure about. We have a NOS Mosrite string-guide that we picked up some time back so we could have Tom replicate it as closely as possible in the foundry. When we had the tuning problems we took the replica nut off and put the NOS nut on...we had the same problems. I had remembered reading one of your posts about installing an original nut from the 60s, so we have that old Celebrity of ours completely disassembled, so I told my dad 'why not stick that nut on there and see what happens?' So we glued it on and we couldn't believe, same problem! We made sure when installing the tuners not to let the D and G strings touch the A and B tuning posts as we believed this may contribute added friction. We put the replica nut back on and noticed that the bottom of the slots was a little higher (must have been an inconsistency when Tom poured the molten metal) so we filed them down a bit. Then it seemed that the strings would stay in tune longer, and they wouldn't go AS sharp as they had been. Then I remembered reading somewhere on the forum about adding graphite nut lubricant. We had some in the shop and decided to try it. Amazing how well the thing stays in tune now! So I'm pretty convinced that having a graphite string guide would improve the tuning stability. But we'll offer the metal version for players that it want it closer to the vintage look.

[oipunkguy]

interesting matt. I've never personally had an issue with this on a mosrite. as long as the string guide sits lower then the zero fret, which I'm sure you already thought of. my only other guess would be maybe it's the angle of the string guide. Sometimes when an angle is too harsh, it can hang up a string. I've had issues with this on a vintage string guide on a strat for example, and the g string on a gibson nut tends to hang up the most for me.
awesome guitar too! I'd have to agree with your dad though, that guitar should be done in a sunburst, so you can see the wood grain.