Kevin Chilcott
Luthier
THE 'ROYAL' ANGEL
The 'Royal' Angel as reviewed in 'Guitarist' 1987.
In Brief
-
The
body (which is not actually symmetrical) and headstock outlines
of the 'Angel'
are very
similar to the original '67 Gibson. The 'Angel'
also has the the same width
top nut which at 1 9/16" is slightly narrower
than the standard 1
11/16". This is
where the similarities end - the
body joins the neck at the 18th fret compared to the
Gibson's 17th, which is possible due to the additional weight of the
Washburn Wonderbar
tremolo unit, so there is better access to the top frets and the guitars
balance is better
than would normally be expected. (It had been thought to 'push' the neck
joint out to
the 20th fret, but that is essentially covered by the Gibson '58 Korina V which is really
a different model entirely to
the '67 ).
All the controls are 'through the
body' which negates the use of a scratch-plate
and
has
the advantage of allowing the stunning and rare
(at that time - 1987) Quilted
Maple top
to really be seen
at it's best. Quilted Maple had been rarely used until then, but has
become much more common since - especially in veneer from. The layout which also
follows the '58 style accentuates the
lines of the guitar.
The
Idea was to push the original concept 'to the limit' and also by coincidence
to make
the ideal guitar for me - I personally think that it worked out very
well indeed,
and
I think that this is 'born out' in Eddie
Allen's review in 'Guitarist' -
October 1987.
NB - Kevin.....
" I
wish
I had one myself - but I suppose we can't always have what we want - Ha ! "
( The picture above
has been enhanced a bit as it was scanned from a very 'dog-eared'
copy of the magazine which was borrowed from a friend - one crease mark is still
quite
noticeable across the body. Hopefully there will be better copy to post at a
later date.)