BlackAir

$1,295.00

Tags: Bluetooth Amp, Cantilevered, Complete Amp Cabinet, Copy Available, Original Available, Reclaimed Instrument, Self-Standing, Stave

Categories: 25.5" scale, Hollow-Body, Pro, Six-String Guitar, Standard Scale

A blacked-out 16-inch viola-bodied electric built around a whiskey-barrel beam, pairing a vintage DiMarzio-made IBZ USA F1 with a hotter Duncan Designed HB-102 and onboard NUX Mighty Air stereo amp.

Out of stock

A blacked-out 16-inch viola-bodied electric built around a whiskey-barrel beam, pairing a vintage DiMarzio-made IBZ USA F1 with a hotter Duncan Designed HB-102 and onboard NUX Mighty Air stereo amp.

BlackAir is built around a 16-inch viola body, an oak whiskey-barrel stave and a deliberately dark visual theme.

The viola body provides enough visual mass to balance a standard electric-guitar neck while remaining comfortable either seated or on a strap. The whiskey-barrel stave forms the structural center of the instrument, with additional front trim incorporated into the composition. Deep black automotive paint pulls the different materials together and establishes the theme.

Two contrasting humbuckers give BlackAir a particularly broad electric voice. At the neck is a vintage DiMarzio-made IBZ USA F1, originally produced for Ibanez. It has a warm, smooth, vintage-leaning character with moderate output and good response to picking.

At the bridge is a Duncan Designed HB-102, an Alnico V humbucker with hotter output, stronger upper mids and more bite. The combination moves from the warmer, thicker character of the F1 to the more aggressive response of the HB-102.

A NUX Mighty Air provides stereo amplification, Bluetooth, effects and eight preset locations in a compact rechargeable package.

The theme is simple:

DARK.

Additional information

Instrument Type	Guitar
Approach	Boneyard Build, Reclaimed-Instrument Build, RestoMod
Construction	Cantilevered, Hollow-Body
Body	16" Viola
Beam	Whiskey Barrel Stave
Neck	Maple
Fingerboard	Rosewood
Headstock	Standard Guitar Headstock
Scale Length	25.5"
Number of Frets	22
Bridge	Fender Top-Loader Hardtail
Tailpiece
Neck Pickup	DiMarzio/IBZ USA F1
Middle Pickup
Bridge Pickup	Duncan Designed HB-102
Pickup Switch	3-Way Toggle
Controls	1 Volume / 1 Tone
Knobs	Vintage Chicken Head Knobs
Amplifier	NUX Mighty Air
Power Supply	USB-C (Internal Rechargeable Battery)

BlackAir

Rubÿtone Guitar Scorecard

9.31 / 10

335 / 360 points

playing

Fun to Play

The first test is whether the guitar makes you want to keep playing it. A high score means the instrument feels inviting, responsive, and rewarding rather than merely interesting to look at. The best examples have enough soul that you forget you are evaluating them and simply keep going.

Playability

Measures how naturally the instrument responds to ordinary playing technique across the neck. Action, fretwork, neck feel, access, and setup should work together without asking the player to compensate for the design. A strong score means the unusual construction never becomes an excuse for compromised playing.

Ergonomics

Considers how comfortably the instrument sits against the body, hangs from a strap, and positions the hands. Weight distribution matters as much as total weight, especially when found objects or onboard amplification shift the center of gravity. The most artful solutions make an unconventional shape feel surprisingly natural.

Tone Quality

Judges the character, clarity, richness, and usefulness of the instrument’s core sound. The goal is not one supposedly perfect tone, but a voice with musical identity and enough detail to reward attentive playing. The highest scores go to guitars whose sound has real soul rather than merely acceptable frequency response.

Tonal Versatility

Measures how many genuinely useful sounds the instrument can produce rather than simply counting switches and settings. Different pickup combinations and controls should create musically distinct choices that a player would actually use. A clever circuit scores higher when its versatility feels purposeful instead of complicated for its own sake.

Amplification

Evaluates how convincingly the guitar performs through its intended amplification system, whether external or built in. Output, clarity, noise, feedback behavior, and usable volume all matter. For self-amplified Rubÿtones, a high score means the amplifier feels integrated into the instrument rather than attached as an afterthought.

build

Fit & Finish

Evaluates the precision and care visible in joints, edges, fretwork, hardware installation, surfaces, wiring, and final setup. Handmade character is welcome; carelessness is not the same thing as character. A strong score shows experienced workmanship while allowing the object to retain the marks and soul of its previous life.

Portability

Measures whether the instrument’s mass and dimensions make sense for the way it is meant to be used. A guitar with an onboard amp may reasonably weigh more, but every added ounce should earn its place. High scores reward designs that are easy to carry, hold, busk with, or live with without sacrificing the idea.

Reliability

Rates the likelihood that the guitar will keep working properly through normal playing, transport, and repeated use. Structural joints, wiring, controls, hardware, and power systems should feel dependable rather than experimental in the risky sense. A high score means the wit of the design is backed by experienced engineering.

Repairability

Considers how sensibly the instrument can be serviced when something eventually wears out or fails. Standard parts, accessible wiring, replaceable components, and understandable construction all help. The strongest designs are inventive without turning a future repair into an archaeological excavation.

Solutions

Scores the quality of the solutions used when unconventional materials create unconventional problems. Beam placement, neck angle, pickup clearance, feedback, balance, and internal packaging are all opportunities to demonstrate experience. High scores go to solutions that are technically sound and artful enough to look inevitable afterward.

Integration

Measures how successfully all the unrelated parts become one coherent working instrument. Neck, beam, body, hardware, electronics, amplifier, and found objects should cooperate mechanically and visually. The best integrations have a kind of soul: the parts stop looking assembled and start looking as though they found each other.

design

Innovation

Measures whether the guitar introduces a genuinely fresh idea, solution, relationship, or way of thinking about an instrument. Novelty alone is not enough; the innovation should improve the object, deepen the concept, or open a useful new possibility.

Shouldn’t Work

Rewards designs that appear improbable but succeed because the underlying engineering is sound. The wit comes from the gap between what your eyes expect and what your hands and ears discover.

Beauty

Judges visual appeal without assuming that beauty must mean polished, conventional, or expensive. Proportion, material, color, age, texture, and restraint can all create beauty in very different ways.

Sculpture

Considers the guitar as a three-dimensional object even when nobody is playing it. Silhouette, negative space, depth, structure, and the relationship between functional parts should reward viewing from more than one angle.

Coherence

Measures whether the many materials, colors, shapes, and components read as one intentional composition. A Rubÿtone can be busy, strange, or witty without looking accidental.

Relic

Rates the visual and emotional value of genuine age, wear, patina, scars, repairs, and evidence of earlier use. Authentic history carries more weight than artificially manufactured distress.

concept

Stage Presence

Measures how strongly the instrument communicates from across a room or under performance conditions. Silhouette, scale, color, movement, and unusual construction can all contribute before a note is heard.

Stands Alone

Judges whether the instrument feels complete and compelling without requiring a long explanation of why it matters. The story may deepen the experience, but the object should already make a persuasive case visually and musically.

Material Story

Considers how much meaning comes from the history and previous purpose of the materials themselves.

Transformation

Measures how completely the original object has been given a convincing second identity without erasing where it came from.

Boneyard Score

Rates how deeply the instrument embodies the practice of building from saved, secondhand, leftover, or previously overlooked materials.

Necessity

Asks whether each major component has a reason to be there. Extra hardware, controls, decorative pieces, and technology should contribute to function, story, balance, or visual composition.

personality

Story

Measures the strength of the narrative carried by the guitar’s materials, development, accidents, people, places, and decisions.

Surprise

Rates the number and quality of discoveries the instrument offers after the first glance.

Conversation

Measures how naturally the guitar makes people curious enough to ask questions.

Cool Factor

Captures the difficult-to-measure quality that makes an instrument desirable before every reason can be itemized.

Identity

Measures how immediately the guitar feels like itself rather than a variation of something more familiar.

Rubÿtone DNA

Rates how clearly the instrument expresses the recurring ideas behind Rubÿtone: reuse, structural invention, functional sculpture, irreverence, and serious playability.

impact

Humor

Measures whether the guitar contains genuine wit rather than a joke pasted onto an otherwise ordinary object.

Punchline

Judges whether the concept resolves into a satisfying final idea—the moment when the viewer suddenly understands why a particular object, material, or decision is there.

Disdain

Measures the willingness to question inherited rules about what an electric guitar is supposed to look like, contain, or be made from.

Rules

Rates how effectively the instrument departs from established guitar-building conventions while remaining musically and structurally convincing.

Copy Potential

Considers whether the central idea could inspire a new custom build without requiring an exact duplicate of the original.

Evolution

Measures how much useful creative territory remains in the idea after this particular guitar is finished.

THE STORY

How Dark Can I Make It?

Sometimes the theme doesn't need much explanation.

For BlackAir, the theme was:

DARK.

I started with a 16" viola body.

I've used viola bodies in a number of Rubÿtones because the proportions work surprisingly well with a standard electric-guitar neck. They're large enough to visually balance the neck without becoming cumbersome, and they're comfortable whether the guitar is sitting in your lap or hanging from a strap.

Then there was the whiskey-barrel stave.

I like the contrast between an old piece of oak with a previous life and the much more finished surfaces surrounding it. The additional trim on the front helped tie the pieces together.

But this wasn't going to be a natural-wood guitar.

It needed paint.

Black automotive paint.

A lot of it.

Warm and Dark Meets Hot and Angry

The pickups ended up being an interesting pair.

At the neck is an IBZ USA F1, made in the USA by DiMarzio for Ibanez.

It's a warm, relatively smooth humbucker—more vintage leaning than aggressive, with enough articulation to stay useful without becoming harsh.

At the bridge is a Duncan Designed HB-102.

That one goes in the other direction.

It's hotter, with more upper-mid bite and considerably more attitude.

So the neck pickup gives me the warm, thick side of the guitar, while the bridge pickup can push things considerably harder.

That seemed appropriate.

If you're going to build a guitar around the idea of DARK, it shouldn't only look the part.

Then Give It Some Air

The amplifier is a NUX Mighty Air.

I've used a lot of small amplifiers in Rubÿtones, and the Mighty Air has become one of my favorites because it gives me stereo amplification, useful effects and presets, Bluetooth and rechargeable power in a package small enough to integrate cleanly into the guitar.

It's loud when I need it to be.

But more importantly, it sounds good.

Pick it up.

Turn it on.

Go to the dark side.