RedwoodTiger

Tiger Tone

Tiger Tone

Redwood Stave viola guitar with vintage toy amp speaker grill.

My dad helped me

with the tricky part
I wanted to have the neck angle just right on this rare piece of material. So when I went to Wisconsin in 2017 I brought this piece of redwood that I got from Tommy Smothers with me.
image

A guitar that was situated around the stamp

information pushed into the wood
The company that made the staves for the water tank that was originally up inside a windmill tower on a farm in northern California was in Healdsburg.

out of many, one.

E Pluribus Unum was once the motto of the United States of America and references the fact that the cohesive single nation was formed as the result of the thirteen smaller colonies joining together.

Materials:

  • Neck

    25.75" scale
    Kramer® The neck was retrofitted with a small cello headstock which was reconfigured for 6 tuners. All of the frets were glued in securely and then leveled before being recrowned and polished.
  • Beam

    Redwood
    Originally it was a tree in California, of course. Tommy Smothers salvaged it after it served a lifetime as a stave in a water tank. He converted it into a hot-tub next to the pool by his Vinyard in Sonoma Valley. I obtained it as a gift from him when I was working on his crew during the renovations. He abandoned the idea of his hot-tub when he was told that the wood was considered not sanitary for women.
  • Body

    16" viola
    This viola was a finely crafted one indeed. It was constructed with hide glue which had melted and delaminated.
  • Bridge

    Floating
    Tune-o-matic®
  • Pickup

    Gretsch
    Chrome Electro Lap Steel Pickup 0069709000
  • Amplifier

    Pre-amp + Main
    Preamp: Rubytone ToneStack Main: Bluetooth BoomBox with rechargeable battery.

First "test drive" video

#stayhome