Hello friends,I am a relatively new guy and recently "discovered" Hank Marvin and the Shadows,To say that I am impressed by his skill and tone would do an injustice to the word impressed,I am really enamored with the echo,slap back and his constant use of the trem.In my viewing of videos on U Tube of the Shadows he mostly uses a Fiesta red Strat but a couple of times he is playing a guitar that I am unaware of,The body shape is roughly a Strat type shape but is much larger and the head stock has a bizzare curve to it,does anyone know what this is.Thanks

it is a Burns "Hank Marvin" guitar.



is this what it looks like?

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Yup,that the one.It looks like a truck compared to the sports car that the Strat is.Also the tone on the vids that he played this guitar on was not really up to Mr. Marvin on a Stratocaster IMHO.Thanks for the reply.

Hello Wingman111,

Here is a old Burns {somewhat comical} footage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mls08C1ukHM
These are pretty wicked guitars,
I hope to pick one up sometime,
though not real common here on US shores.

Cheers.

Hank Marvin, my idol...

He played with his famous Strat # 34336 from 1959 till about 1962 when his guitars were stolen.
As he was complaing about the tuning stability of the Strat when using the tremolo at lenght, a British guitar designer, Jim Burns made a special model for him with a much better tremolo..
The design is bulkier, agreed ,but soundwise it's a very fine guitar (tulipwood)
with a lot of various clear sounds (with a push-pull knob you can get 1+3 or 1+2+3)
In the early 70s he switched back to the Strat as his main guitar.
In the meantime, several series of HBM Strats have been released by Fender.
The Shadows started a World Tour last week end, together with Cliff Richard to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of their cooperation.

Tulipwood

Those Burn's guitars were quite common here during the 80's. I remember being offered one for a fraction of their current cost. Very distinctive pickups on those guitars.

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Indeed. Burns made some nice pickups. Or so Brian May thinks...

Cheers - C

PS Ninja, I saw a nice plank of tulipwood in the "off-cuts corner" at my local timber yard the other day. Think I should pop back and bag it?

I think i'm getting sick of timber mate. But why not you are the man to carve that into something beautiful.

I'm thinking of ditching wood as a material (bloody centerline jigs are driving me crazy:cry: ) and using my mould making knowledge to make resin guitars (though as we previously discussed thats not without its problems). My bassist has a harley benton violin bass thats resin. It is suprisingly very good, especialy the neck. Zero relief, no truss rod and no buzz, quite the accomplishment. It looks and plays wonderfully too, a suprising guitar. He tells me from when they were made in germany. Another example of meticulous german attention to detail methinks.

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Well, you are very much the man to do it!

And it doesn't only have to be resin. Many other pourable materials out there...

Cheers - C