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When we ventured away from proven designs that spanned back into the 50s we found that you can't just change the body shape or configuration without a lot of strainge things happening. Things you would never expect. Maybe a switch would no longer fit because of a carve, or a knob would set up crooked because of a change of routing. Maybe a pickup would get set in a dead spot or a certain body shape would cause resonance problems. And then sometimes they just come out to damn ugly to do anything with. So prototypes serve 2 purposes. 1) To learn and 2) to ensure plenty of fire wood for the winter months.
Once we have a design that works, or is getting close, we will typically make anywhere from 8 to 12 prototypes so we can continue to learn by taking them all the way from a block of rough wood to a finshed instrament. When we get to this point we are investing a large portion of our small budget so a lot of tweaking goes on.
Then we end up with 8 to 12 prototypes and our next goal is to get them in the hands of guitar players. We have our own likes and dislikes in design, now we have to get these in other's hands so we can get some feedback. Find out what other people think about our design. Sometimes we lend them to local musicians to try out. Sometimes we sell them, often below our cost. The reason is that we want feedback.
These prototypes carry the same warranty as our regular guitars with the exception of cosmetic blems. This is because many times the guitar was lent to a local musician to try out for a week or two and when we get them back we can no longer call them new. But for someone looking to get a great deal on a Rahan, check out our prototypes. If none are listed on the site (they will be listed on the Rahan Inventory page under "Specials") give me a call, there may be some coming down the line and you can pick and choose some components. The only catch is that we insist that you give us feedback on the guitar within 3 days.
Prototypes typically sell for about half of what our discounted price will be when the model is finalized.
Rick Cantu |
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