Boutique guitars inspired by Norse mythology handmade in England
Unfortunately, due to new GPSR regulations, I will no longer be able to ship any products to the EU or Northern Ireland from Friday 13th December 2024.
I am in the process of making the necessary arrangements can be, and an announcement will follow with more details. These are currently expected to be completed early next year.
In the meantime, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of my customers for your support over the years.
Welcome to Hrafn Guitars!
Pronunciation: /r̥ɑvn/ (rah-vn) /gi-tahrs/
I make boutique guitars and basses inspired by Norse mythology.
When I’m not making guitars, I also make guitar picks, EDC items and various woodworking projects.
For a recent bachi commission, I was asked to make the bachi as heavy as possible whilst maintaining the form factor I produced for smaller hands.
These coins are made from a selection of 1930s brass caps from vintage English fuel cans.
Friðþjófr or Fritjof means “Thief of Peace” in Old Norse. This shape is optimised for high-speed licks, but works just as well chugging chords. A full bevel runs down both main edges for pick scrapes, and the back edges are unbevelled for improved grip.
This shape is the primary pick design I make and sell. You can usually find them on my Etsy.
Mikill is old Norse for “great” or “large” in size. I designed this pick style when transitioning from playing the guitar to playing the bass, and found traditional bass picks didn’t suit me.
You can usually find them on my Etsy.
Following the success of the first run of bachis, I received a commission for a bachi for smaller hands.
At the time, I had a sheet of delrin in stock intended for pick making, however realising this made it ideal for blades, I set about designing a construction style to suit the thickness of the stock (4 mm).
I decided to replicate the Nagauta shape I’d used previously as, to me, that provides the most comfortable grip.
This is a post I’ve been looking forward to writing for a very long time.
For those who’ve not been following this story, this is my first guitar, a Westfield Strat copy, complete with a plywood body nailed together in some places.
For reference, initially I named this project “plywoodstrat” and gave it a matching hashtag for Instagram; however, I later settled on the Napier Railton theme, hence the double title.
Continue reading “#plywoodstrat – The Napier Railton Tribute Guitar”
I’ve made a number of soap bar style worry stones from various materials.
Available here.
During 2020, I decided to make my first bachi, a type of plectrum used for playing the Shamisen, a Japanese stringed instrument similar in some ways to a western banjo, with a distinct quintessential Japanese timbre.