Kavanagh Customs

6th JULY 2008 - A Whole New Look for Kavanagh Custom Guitars

It's been a long time in the making but with much hustle and plenty of bustle, head-scratching, keyboard-bashing and lengthy (and expensive) international phone calls, we are proud to finally unveil our new website. Hopefully if you have visited the site before, the difference will be immediately obvious - what do you think?

There was a short period of down-time during this afternoon whilst the old site was deleted and everything for the new site was tied in with our existing database (which itself has had a large overhaul, although that's not as obvious tot he casual viewer), but now everything's in place and we don't intend for there to be any further service interruptions. The general layout of the site stays the same - all the content that was here is still here, just more nicely displayed and we have avoided changing the navigation system as far as was possible so you'll still be able to find the parts you're after with a minimum of fuss.

In other news, our imminant move Southwards isn't (yet!) causing many problems for our custom orders - those that are still outstanding are in the very final stages of setup and polish and will be with their new owners by the end of this week. We also have a huge pile of oh-so-nearly finished new items to restock and expand our online store so watch this space - hopefully we will be able to start offering them in the very near future.

Enjoy the new website!

16th JUNE 2008 - Weezer! All is Forgiven!

We weren't allowed to talk about it earlier but with Weezer's new song 'Pork and Beans' in heavy rotation on radio stations across the globe, we're finally allowed to break our pent-up silence. This isn't the sort of thing we regularly cover in these new items, and perhaps we should do it a little more often! Earlier this year a couple of the members of our team were invited to a very exclusive playing of Weezer's newest single (and their first in an inordinately long time), a song which you will no-doubt have heard on the radio.

From that early and (slightly) rough cut that we were honoured to be invited to listen to, to the final version rotating around radio playlists worldwide, it is wonderfully quirky, adolescently penned with defiance, and a great return for some of the longest-standing bands in the genre. This is just a public thank you and congratulations to the band - all that Beverly Hills and Drugs nonsence from the Make Believe album are forgiven!

29th March 2008 - Fake KavAnagh Customs items on eBay

We've had a number of eBay auctions come to our attention recently being sold as our bodies and necks which have proved to be nothing at all to do with us. Although we will do everything we can to ensure that these items are removed prior to anyone parting with their cash for sub-standard and low-quality knock-offs, we are always happy to hear from anybody looking at placing bids or purchasing our items secondhand on eBay or elsewhere.

If you come across one of our items for sale and are considering buying, please don't hesitate to drop us an email and we will be more than happy to confirm the origins of the item in question before you part with your cash.

Unfortunately, there seems to have been an influx of 'fakes' or misinformed sellers trying to pass off items as our own to gain higher prices in the past few weeks so stay vigilant and always email us to ask if you are at all unsure.

18th December 2007 - Restocked the Shop for Christmas!

We've been promising it for some time, and now we've finally managed to restock our online store, just in time for Christmas! So if you're one of the people who have been recently pining after the out-of stock Stratocaster mahogany neck, or Hendrix Olympic White body, then go take a look because everything is back. It's only very limited quantities though so act fast!

http://www.kavanaghcustoms.co.uk/shop

Our last shipping date of 2007 is currently likely to be this Friday (the 21st December) so now's your last chance!

We also have a very limited number of our Gem which will be made available very early in the new year. Watch this space!

06 September 2007 - IP theft is a CRIME!

Since the end of our sale we've noticed a few less-than-honest members reselling the items they bought from us at auction claiming to have paid £150/£230/etc amount of money for it (when in reality the auctions ended depressingly low..!)

We have no problem with people reselling our items - it's a free market and we've no right to stop anybody selling something that belongs to them. However, what we really do object to is individuals using the photographs we shed money, blood, sweat and tears taking, and the descriptions we spent hours writing just so that they can turn a quick buck at someone else's expense.

This is intellectual property theft and it is a crime and in the case of eBay listings, we are having them removed.

Please be careful who you buy our products from, and be aware that our support system only applies to the original buyer - if you buy second-hand, you've no idea if what you're getting is genuine or if it's been badly treated and then pawned on.

One eBay member in particular: millionaire_music (485 ), has been listing one of our necks repeatedly this week (despite having the listing removed by eBay twice). He is lying to you - he never paid the amount he's claiming for it and has not asked permission to be using our images or descriptions.

If anybody does want to use any of the content on this site (text or images), please contact us, we're usually more than happy to let you.

22 August 2007 - Ebay have ruined it!

We've had a bit of a problem with our eBay account this week. After a muddle with our credit cards, we missed our invoice for eBay listing fees lasts month. We've been trying to chase them through their ridiculously complex help system ever since without success.

As a result, eBay suspended our selling ID this afternoon, canceling all auctions and sale items. We're doing battle with them now but apparently we've no hope of sorting it out in time for the sale end. This means there won't be any further auctions. We're really sorry about this.

However, if you're still looking for bodies or necks, the offers still stand and we'll also happily consider requests for bulk purchases (as long as we have it in stock of course), in the interest of clearing out some more space in our workshop.

Sorry guys. Blame eBay!

30 July 2007 - Sale and Down-Time

We will be closing down the workshop here for a few weeks well-earnt rest at the end of August (and to give us the opportunity to retool part of our workshop). As a result, we will be running a massive clear-out sale on eBay towards the end of next month.

If you've always wanted to build yourself a project guitar from the highest quality British-made parts but haven't quite been able to reach the prices, now's your opportunity. Everything will be offered at £150 (every single body and neck, all nitrocellulose finishes, all brand new), and we will also run a select few auctions running at 99p with no reserve so there's some excellent chances to grab yourself a bargain.

There is, however, a minor catch (isn't there always?). Although everything we will be selling will be brand new and never used, they will all be strictly sold as-is with no returns and no customer support (we do have an excellent project guitar help section though to help you with you project) - mainly due to the fact that there won't be anybody manning the emails for a few weeks.

We also hope to soon have our own online shop up and running in the near future which will only offer in-stock and ready-to-ship items at pretty huge discounts against the price of ordering them custom-made from us. Click here to see the shop now - it won't look like anything spectacular to start with but as an on-going project we will continue building and updating it as we get the chance.

28 July 2007 - The RT is finally finished!!

We are pleased and proud to finally released the first few photographs of our latest creation: the RT. Like the Gem these will be limited to a run of only 100 and will come in two colour options: black nitrocellulose and two-step candy apple red (nitrocellulose). We have worked long and hard and close with a number of big names in assuring that the RT is everything a live guitarist needs - a true stadium rocker that maintains it's high quality of sound and whether the volume is being pushed up past 11 at Wembly stadium or being fed directly into the latest studio equipment.

To find out more about this guitar please see here:

http://www.kavanaghcustoms.co.uk/thert.html

To celebrate, we will be releasing two of the very first RTs (numbered 001 and 002) into our eBay store at £700 this evening. We don't yet have a firm date for the official release so this is the only way to get hold of them at the moment.

Please click on any of the photos below to be taken to the eBay listings (opens in new window):

20 July 2007 - New Mailing List

It always seems that our website comes in second to our guitars. This is, perhaps, as it should be but when it means that people aren't being kept up to date about the things that we are doing (and things that they want to be kept up to date about!), we needed to do something.

So, after lots of head-scratching we have a fully-functional mailing list system. It runs directly through our servers (no third-party scripts) so you can rest assured that your information will be kept absolutely safe.

We have a very large number of replacement bodies and necks for Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters going up on eBay in the near future so if you want to be one of the first to know about it, and everything else we're up to here, please subscribe to our mailing list (on the right of virtually every page).

We also intend to release some exclusive offers to our subscribers and promise we won't be sending many emails - possibly once or twice a month - so no need to worry about us filling up your inbox with junk. You can, of course, unsubscribe again any time you wish.

26 June 2007 - Bulk lot of necks

With John away. we have been able to spend some time these past few days clearing out some of the things that have accumulated in the workshop. After all, we need the space..!

We've come up with ten guitar necks (eight for Fender Stratocasters, two for Fender Telecasters), all of which have been lying around here for a while now. All have minor forms of grading - some have scratches from a bad nut install, several are the result of the last time we accepted a high school work experience student (and never again). All of them are in excellent condition apart from the minor marks/scuffs/etc and all would be easily returned to 'perfect'.

We decided the best thing to do is sell them off as one large bulk lot so there is an auction scheduled to start on Thursday evening, starting at 99p with no reserve, for other £3000 (three thousand pounds!) worth of our necks.

Somebody is going to get an absolute bargain.

If it's already past Thursday 28th June then click on the image above to be taken directly to the auction, if not, feel free to subscribe to our eBay store's RSS feed, that way you'll be first to know as soon as the auction does start.

19 June 2007 - contact us & help

Just over a year ago we made a very important decision here at Kavanagh Customs - we moved out of our store premises and moved into a dedicated workshop. This has proven to have both advantages and disadvantages - we are better equipped and can do all the cool and dangerous things with power tools we were never able to do in the store because of the health and safety risks for the general public.

This does of course also mean that we've lost a lot of the person-to-person communication, we can't invite Jo Bloggs Public into our workshop - our insurance company would have a fit and then shut us down.

Building a project guitar is not always as easy and straight-forward as people imagine: it isn't always just a case of sticking the neck into the body and screwing it all together. For this very reason we've been working on the Help section of our website - a series of articles to help the project guitar builder (and not just those who've bought their bodies/necks from us) troubleshoot some of the problems they might be faced with - to make up for the fact that we can't be there in person anymore.

We've also finally added an online Contact Us form so that you can drop us a line if there's anything we can help you with that isn't covered in the help section. No more typing out email addresses from images on our website, now you just write your message and hit the send button!

The first Gems are literally just being finished today and will be on their way to their excited new owners tomorrow morning. We're currently working on a reduced team as one of our colleagues has been called away but this shouldn't delay any of the orders by more than a day or so.

01 June 2007 - gem update

We've just received our seventieth Gem order - that means that there's only thirty left on offer now. They have certainly been going much faster than we had ever expected!

A lot of the emails we have been receiving lately have been along the lines of:

"Are you really only ever going to make one hundred of these guitars? Why?"

The answer, quite simply is: yes! There will only ever be one hundred Gems. We won't make any more, we won't decide in a few year's time to roll out another batch. Nothing.

As to the reason why, that's a little more complicated. As a very good starting point, imagine how much time and effort goes into each one of these guitars. They quite literally take three months each. Of course, a large amount of that time is setting time for each layer of nitrocellulose but even so, each of us here can only realistically manage ten or fifteen guitars at a time so even at 100, there's a lot of work to do!

Also, one our strong beliefs here is that mass-manufacturing is wrong - a guitar that almost every single person in the World owns (such as the Fender Stratocaster) is soulless - they are all made automatically by machines in a factory. Literally thousands of them are rolled off the production line every single day. Where's the spirit of music in that? Carbon copies are not what guitars (or any musical instruments) should be about, and that's why we will never make more than one hundred of any one type of guitar.

It does, of course, also mean that if you own one of our guitars, they won't ever depreciate in value!

20 May 2007 - gem on ebay

We will be releasing two Gems onto eBay, at least one of them on a 99p auction later on today or tomorrow so keep your eye out for them! The auction one will run for ten days starting at 99p with no reserve, whilst the other will go into our eBay store at a reduced price. These are numbers 003 and 006 - the same black and mahogany guitars photographed on in the gallery.

We have now added an RSS feed to our eBay Store so if you're technically-minded, keep an eye on the feed - you'll be one of the first to know when they go live