![]() ![]() Time moved on, and through the seventies and eighties all the skills which would eventually go into creating Fret-King® were being honed around the world in auto and guitar paint shops, playing and building guitars, repairing and refinishing them, and along the way, developing clear ideas about how to “build that better mousetrap”, a process which continued unabated ‘til Trev moved from Australia to California USA in September 1984 to bring one of the most innovative pieces of hardware the guitar industry has ever seen to the wider world the Wilkinson Roller Nut, from which followed a whole other story of development, commerce, engagement with the guitar industry and musicians in R&D, prototyping and production, and the development of Wilkinson hardware and pickups and eventually led to the superb bridges, machine heads and pickups designed for Fret-King®, and of course the all-important Wilkinson vibratos we use on Fret-King® to-day, with their amazing return to zero pitch stability. Progressing through a series of Futuramas, Graciosas, Burns and other brands of the day, playing in bands from the age of just twelve, Trev developed a fascination for what made guitars ‘tick’ and later during his graphics course at art school went on to produce his first guitar, a plexiglass ‘T style’ for which an Italian Graciosa guitar, (now an über collectible rarity), very generously gave up its heart and soul to provide the electronics, pickups, and neck. ![]() ![]() Even back then Trev was prepared to improvise and innovate to achieve his dreams.Įarly experiments with ukuleles and analogue telephone voice coils gradually gave way to a succession of guitars of the era, a time when US produced guitars were as good as unavailable in the UK and cost almost a King’s ransom. Arguably the Fret-King® story starts all the way back in the Northwest of the United Kingdom in the latter part of the 1950’s and Trev Wilkinson’s early fascination with what was then still ‘the nascent electric guitar’, it’s heroes of the day, and how Trev could get himself one of these exotic objects of desire. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |