tell me about mckerrihan please

[stevedenver]

anastasia, solo, kenza,
whats the difference and
overall feel and sound

ive researched and very found little

[stevedenver]

well to broaden thngs a bit
has anyone played one and can you tell me how they sound, finish, construction quality etc?

[JohnW400]

He is or was a builder out of the southwest. From what I understand his stuff was highly regraded and was reasonably priced. I was going to check him out myself when I was looking to get a custom made oval hole but , if I recall, his prices really increased so I went with another builder.

I saw a few some years ago at a local store. The owner spoke highly of them.

I haven't seen anything about him since.

[andrewhome]

I just bought a 15" McKerrihan archtop with no f holes from golden age fretted instruments. He took in 3 lately - the other two are 17" and still available - almost identical except one has floating pickup and the other's is body mounted (duncans i believe). I love the guitar. Fit and finish are magnificent and it plays better than anything i've ever held. Strung it with 13-56 flatwounds and with my little Henricksen it sounds like wes (it, not me). Exactly what i was looking for i couldn't be happier. I'd recommend anyone that has the opportunity to try one of his guitars do so. Terrific value.

[stevedenver]

thanks
can you tell me a bit about the neck , frets , etc-say as compared to a gibson , fender, something that i might be familiar with

[andrewhome]

Definitely more like gibson than fender, but to me it feels better than both - maybe a bit like an old Guild x500 but not exactly - the frets are medium i would say. I can't express it well, but do you know what I mean if I say you can tell a guy is a great player after he picks up a guitar and just plays a couple scales? It's all in the feel, the tone, the authority - - and it's the same with this guitar. A fine guitar just has that intangible something that makes you go "wow" when you play it and you know its something special. I'm sorry I wish I could say it better. This is the only one of his guitars I've ever played. I bought it because it was exactly what I was looking for and they're rare (a 15" luthier-built arch top) but after playing it I immediately considered buying a couple more of his guitars just to put away as an investment - they're that good. The workmanship reminds me of a Zeidler I once played - just absolutely flawless. The higher end market totally sucks right now so many dealers are willing to just bite their lip and make a sale, especially if it's been a while. If they're not then move on - it's a buyers market in other words so don't be afraid to play hard ball. Hope this helps in some small way. I would certainly recommend you go play one if you have the opportunity and if there is one available that's what your looking for it's probably worth risking the shipping costs to try it out. Good luck, Andrew

[tucson matt]

I had a 7 string Anastasia Solo I bought from him direct.
A fine guitar, but I never really bonded with it and sold it to a guy who Mckerrihan was supposed to build a guitar for, but quit.
It had a floater and fed back some, even with Dougs plugs.
Vic Juris has a no f-hole one.
They are fine guitars and have held their value well for such a short-lived, regional luthier.
He was a fine builder and a nice guy - he seemed to just disappear from the face of the Earth.

[ES350]

I have a 16" McKerrihan; very finely made, great wood selection, more of a Benny style guitar in terms of neck and tone. He had a beautiful spruce top blonde 16" with a floater that was just unbelievable (kinda wish I had bought that one). Glenn was a friend of mine and I haven't seen or heard from him in quite some time now...I am pretty sure he's OK, just got completely disillusioned with building guitars and making zero money to support his family.

I was just going through some guitars in the side room and found a McKerrihan single pickup LP style solidbody...one of the first guitars Glenn made.

[lespauljr]

Hi - I own the red one on the mckerrihan owners website. It's an Anastasia solo custom. Very high quality instrument. You can tell you have picked a high quality instrument when pick up a mckerrihan. A little prone to feedback but boy what an unplugged tone they have. Just kinda begs you to go in a stairwell and play unplugged to hear all the great natural acoustic tones. Too bad they're still not being made. No idea on total instrument count but probably not much over 100 - 125.
Rick

[stevedenver]

clearly im in the minority but here goes

thought id follow up-these are my comments and not intended to offend anyone-everyone has thier own taste and preferences-but im putting this up because when i researched there was so little info and review-


i bought and returned a red 17" Kenza (??anastasia) 1045


I was not pleased with the neck, which just felt 'off'-to be more clear, it reminded me a great deal of a an early 70s yamaha accoustic-just not the nicest contour-it seems that some of the early production japanese necks had perhaps, a deeper D shape and not much of a shoulder -and that what this felt like (and i happen to like a variety of neck shapes, and have some real baseball bats from gibson and Lentz, this didnt feel like any of those), nor the unplugged sound-which was really dead compared to my triggs of identical design -best description was that for a true accoustic with a floater, ths guitar , a 2" 3/4 depth, sounded more akin to a semi hollow


i thought the guitar beautiful, and well made-thought the neck extension -the raised portion and in particular the side support wing contour and shaping - was a bit crude--bridge was hefty-rather large in width at the base-sat flat on the top, no tiny arch space between the areas under the bridge posts--finish was nice, and if i had to guess top might have been adirondack simply due to the relatively wide grain, maple was very nicely tight tiger striped flame, headstock was a bit thicker than many-as was the width of the binding (-a bit unusual-i noticed it but it didnt bother me) , intonation was great -nice detail like bit of rosewood on the heel cap

biggest problem was the guitar was, imho, overbuilt, very hefty , which i thought stifled its sound


plugged in it was better-the bartolini , imho, was not a good compliment to the guitar-a bit too transparent and bright, almost flat top like -this might really change with a different pickup -tone control did help, but it was still not what id call fat or round or even warm


if mine was representative of the overall build, this wouldnt be my choice in the high3k to high 4K range -my impression was that he was a tlaented wood worker learning luthiery, but not really yet accomplished at tuning and thinning the tops-and bear in mind, the 1045 was only some 2-3 years into his builidng as i recall-so he may have really changed

aestheically the other McK's ive seen are just gorgeous, the woods and contrast wonderful , but performace has to be there too

not trying to sound like a cork sniffer-just my honest impressions over 4 days

[coolvinny]

Steve, I don't think you are stepping on any toes. You are saying that the woods, fit, intonation and finish are all basically perfect...you just have an issue with the shape of the neck and with the thickness of the top.

You must recall that when a custom builder builds guitars, each one is...custom built!

They specs will vary based on what the original owner requested, etc. I owned a Buscarino which was by 'objective standards' overbuilt but it's clearly because the owner wanted it to be feedback resistant rather than have glorious unplugged tone. That guitar also had a very thin neck because...you guessed it...the original owner wanted it that way. John Buscarino builds awesome guitars and I know for a fact he has others out there that focus on acoustic tone rather than feedback resistance. They're all perfect in their own way.

I still have a McKerrihan and it's very different than the Busky was. The McKerrihan is feather light with a medium neck. Acoustic tone all the way, but careful guitar/body/amp positioning is needed to avoid feedback if playing at 'band' levels through an amp...that's the result of a 3.75" deep body! Despite being feather light, it's 11 years old and is still in perfect condition. No binding separation, no cracks or growing lacquer checks, neck is dead-straight, etc. I wish it was more feedback resistant, but then I'd probably be looking for another guitar with better pure acoustic tone...

One guitar can't do it all if someone's looking to play both plugged-in and unplugged.

Sounds like you should let that one go and buy something that better suits your needs as a player.

[stevedenver]

of course youre right Vinnie
but i wanted an accoustic archtop with a floater-to get the best of both worlds-except the feedback issue


and
i did let it go

[lespauljr]

Yeah Steve - Sounds like you may have gotten a lemon there. It was the first I had heard of the Mckerrihans being problematic. I wonder if you are on to something with the lower serial numbered ones and I wonder if anyone else has found any of the earlier models suffering similar symptoms? I haven't played any other Mckerrihans but have read a lot of favorable comments by owners. The one I have is quite loud and toneful unplugged and has a very comfortable not-too-fat, not-too-thin feel to the neck. Mine also has the rounder triangular? shaped sound holes which produce surprising tone and volume output and not the typical F holes that can sound somewhat muffling and thin. If you've ever had a chance to play an early USA Epiphone Howard Roberts Custom, it sounds similar to the way mine sounds. I had previously located a 1967 Epiphone Howard Roberts Custom for a friend of mine (it's now his "Desert Island" guitar) and we were able to play both guitars together plugged and unplugged and the sound was near identical in tone and volume.

[stevedenver]

wow those are gorgeous