The Valenti Guitar Deep Dive Episode 240 

The builder has let me know he just did a guitar with ball end rounded frets and that will be standard now as well as the bridge modifications

Once again, thank you very much for the extremely kind and in depth review and thank you for demoing it so professionally. I really enjoyed making this instrument and it is one of my all time favourites, being so unique. As i already said in private, the issues you have found are definetly food for thoughts and they will be addressed from now on, so that they won't happen again: -the bridge screws are an easy fix, as you mentioned, and it will be done swiftly. -for the slight fret sprout, I think that ebony board suffered from the drastic change of humidity from Italy to Arizona. It is not bad, as you said, but it really needs to be a 5 out of 5 score. I will probably work out a reliable and time efficent way to incorporate ball-end fret ends on my instruments from now on, which is a thing I've already been thinking for a while now. thanks again once more and thanks to all the viewers for the great feedback and nice words! Luigi

Luigi's craftsmanship is inspiring. Beautiful instrument!

Thanks for the great advise. I just finished my very first refret. An old Carvin guitar with an ebony fret board, and a broken head stock. What a great feeling to bring a good guitar back to life. I never could have done it without your help. All the best to you!

Very, very nice build!! The top is 1 piece too, no bookmatch. First time I've seen that 'claw system' in the back too. Congrats to the builder, very nicely done!! 8) --gary

Aloha Phill! Aloha Everyone!

Wow, stunning guitar with excellent features. I love the guitars that make you smile just by their appearance. 🔥🎸😎 Thank you for sharing. \m/. BELLO 🎸

Hi Phil, what a sensational sounding and great looking guitar with quality well thought out appointments. Thanks very much for a great review. Who wouldn’t want one! Cheers ✌️🎸

I love that Satin purple back with the natural cap edge into the gloss burst.

I sit and listen to too many guitar reviews while I work. This guitar sounds special, it's beautiful both in looks and tone. Well done!

Michigan here. Liked the video.. really liked how you went over the frets and the bridge screws... I won't shill for the business I just started (not public yet but I have 21 guitars ready to go with last one on the bench now) but the video makes me even more attentive to those two issues. I spend a lot of time doing the frets and getting the bridge set as best as I can to my skill level. My guitars are all junked, broken, discarded or defective from the factory and ending up being bought by me for less than $60. I try to repair the issue and find then offer them up for sale with my profit really only being around $15 to $20.. yeah I am keeping my day job. I find video like this very informative for what I need to keep in mind and work on so my future customers can get the best guitar for the money they spend. I have one question for you.. and everyone who wants to respond to this.. Is having circuit boards made where I should think about going to. Right now I try to clean up or just repair as needed any electronics. I have only had to replace all the pots and switches in three out of 22 guitars. I don't mind looking into buying some premade ones to have on hand but I don't know if that is what everyone is going to want or if it is a fad. .. oh, and I like your podcasts too. I have them on often while I am fixing up my guitars.

Beautiful. Reminds me of a custom chopper

Beautiful guitar top review. Thanks Phil

Beautiful piece of functional art. It looks amazing and sounds amazing. Classy ride! Great info as well.

Great review incredibly beautiful guitar that sounds amazing! I have a Jackson Strat type that weighs 6.6lbs…LOVE light weight guitars!!!

Great looks and tones!

Amazing build. Love the fact Luigi appreciated the input. Here in Tennessee that fret sprout would not likely have been an issue. I love the bridge solution. I am surprised more luthiers and manufacturers don't use Monster Bolts.

That guitar sounds great! Also a great demo of sounds available.

wow, sounds amazing too

Looks and sounds great. One thing I'd like to see with that kind of build is actual photographs of the actual guitar during the entire build process. That would be a great addition to the booklet that comes with the guitar.

Beautiful work. It sounds extremely bright to me.

Ive had that Schaller Claw in My guitar 30yrs, As the strings go flat You just Adjust it a lil bit and it brings all strings back at the same time without using Tuning Keys…. Its brilliant

Great guitar!

8:00 absolutely spot on criticism. Those tiny bridge saddle screws will chew a trench into your picking palm if you are the type to rest it a lot there and pick and strum and mute. My solution was to dremel grind those screws SHORTER (cut them with a dremel grinding wheel) and recess them via having them short enough so they don't stick above the top of the bridge saddles. Make sure you don't just sandpaper the tops down because the tops is where the allen screw goes in! you have to remove from the bottom of the screws to shorten them. Cutting them or sanding them either way will fix that problem. OH, I see you did this in this vid! I commented too quickly. Yep. Cut them shorter. Not hard to do.

That's a beautiful guitar, and it seems like it plays well too. Thank you so much for sharing, and thank you Luigi for building it! Amazing.

Great review as always. As a basement luthier, his craftsmanship is top notch.

Gorgeous guitar !! The craftsmanship looks superb. For the hotter wound pickups I was impressed with how clean and chimey it sounded. I would be proud to own a guitar like this, but I am so impatient I would go crazy waiting so long to play it.

Va Len ti……beautifully crafted and very well engineered. Enjoy Phillipe.

I'd buy it just for the weight !! Thanks Phil great demo and review !!

Sounds great.

The effects sound great

Really respect that response, good look for an expensive guitar that would cut your hands out of the box. Those bridge screws you recommended are a game changer, made my fender strat trem playable vs annoying (especially compared to nice smooth tele saddles). They should be standard for any bridge/guitar that takes itself seriously with that screw placement on the saddles. Pickups sound great and looks beautiful, thank you for sharing!

It has such a unique sound, beautiful. How much of that is the pickups and how much the rest of the signal chain?

Man that sounds good

Super cool!

WOW....I've never seen a more beautiful rig. This is such fine workmanship.

I would so love to have one of these! 🎈

This is the 2nd vid on these guitars Ive seen in a week, absolutely stunning instruments made by a very clever person. Fantastic vid sir

Good gracious that sounds good!

Less than 7lbs is amazing! My custom guitar is over 11lbs, which I actually love, but I have a $500 Agile which is around 7lbs, and I can play super fast on it.

Hey Phil ... appreciate the video. With 20 years in the repair biz would there be any chance of a neck binding repair vid and in particular how to avoid damaging neck laquer when scraping an acetone softened binding application as the repair example?

You are doing alright couldnt afford tnis 15 years ago.

The neck pickup has a very nice sound.

Wow! Truly a work of art and sounds amazing!

Did I miss it, how much? Beautiful.

Very nice

An incredible guitar by a master luthier!!!!

12:12 the happy face says it all :) :)

That, is one gorgeous guitar. Looks and sounds great. Definitely a work of art.

Wow!

Does the output of a pick up affect the volume? And if so, could we adjust the height (of the PU) to lower or increase the volume?

Sounds really beautiful! Very balanced. Love the coil split options they sounds great too! It will all sit great in any mix. Thanks for the tip on bolts!

Schaller Sure-Claw is AMAZING and totally worth the $50+ upgrade. I was thinking about the GOTOH tremolo for my build... I'll go with the ABM instead

Gorgeous guitar! A real work of art. However, I’m amazed that this guitar was shipped with those sharp and long saddle screws. All of that attention to detail, but you shred your palm the first time you palm mute? Not sure how that doesn’t get noticed.

Can you just order the pickups? I want that neck pickup!

?? Wow! That is beautifully made! I would like it if the neck were close to the acoustic I play, which is a Sigma at 1.69 . What size are the grub screws you buy Phil? Are they M2,3,4,5 or #4-40 or #4-42 ?? What strings are on the guitar. Love those pickups !! Your playing is great too…❤😮

THe price seems reasonable. I expected this to be an almost 10k guitar. Very nice!

Almost didn’t recognize Phil without the black shirt

Lovely guitar. Check out the crimson review of another guitar of his.

You should have mentioned he apprenticed for Ben Krow at Crimson

At xotic we had drawers full of different grub screw lengths for our gotoh bridges. We had different sets for different fret board radii. Always made sure that the grub screws were flush with the saddles

I always check those grub screws on guitars. That will tell you how much someone cares about the build. If I am going to drop some serious coin on one, they better be flush or better.

Awesome. 4real mon

Think you threw in some extra syllables lol of course great video

Really enjoyed this one. Amazing instrument. Phil, you're playing has noticeably been taken up a notch. I need to get to work on that Tim Pierce masterclass!

I really like that it's a convo between builder and player. I think the guitar looks great and I really like that any issues will be analyzed and addressed for the long run.

Nice. I had one built about 3 years ago and love it. Only issues was fret sprout and some movement in the back cover material (mine was not metal) due to the high humidity where I live.

Very nice guitar! I've shortened bridge saddle screws on many guitars and the best way I have found is to chuck them up in a drill and grind the required length off with a bench grinder while the drill is turning. Works like a charm and you don't have to dress the end of the screw with a file as you would have to do if you cut it with a saw.

?Will the sure claw work in a strandberg?

I don’t know if you’ve been practicing more, or if you were just inspired by that incredible guitar, but you sounded fantastic Phil. Congrats on the purchase and hats off to Luigi!

OMG all that purple 🤤🤤🤤🤌🤌🤌💚💚💚

It’s just Vah-Len-Tee isn’t it?

Absolutely beautiful! It's in my bucket list now.

To me, the split coil sound was Strat heaven

That split coil neck tone is probably the best split coil tone I’ve heard.

Digging that "McKnight" amp behind you!

Thanks for the tip on Monsterbolts.

McMasters has smaller set screws. I use them all the time. I built two guitars for a friend; who was blood thinners. He would bleed non stop, if his palm was on the bridge. I found the correct threading and size, changed them out; no more bleeding......... Now, I do that on all my guitars. Easy quick fix for those long screws. Gorgeous guitar!! Sounds great as well!

Every once in a while I hear a guitar where it seems like the quality of the craftsmanship is present in every sound. This is such a guitar. Congrats Luigi for making such a an outstanding instrument. Bellissimo!👏

Love to see folks able to accept constructive feedback. Beautiful guitar and beautiful playing as always Phil

I wish a was luthier 😭. That first pick up you used sounded sooo good!

I’m in a drawing for one of these. I would be so happy if they pull my #. 🤞🏻🤞🏻

Phil, you’ve improved so much as a guitar player! Some of your parts I would love to hear turned into full songs.

Sounds really nice too. I don’t usually stick around for the play-through portion of these videos, but this one just sounds so good. Cheers.

I like the arched pattern he used for the fret markers. Pretty cool.

Nice pattern to the fret markers.

Thanks Phil for quoting specifications in metric as well as imperial. Very thoughtful that your audience is worldwide. Much appreciated.

It's always wonderful to see a piece of art by a master craftsman that is also a damn fine sounding instrument, too!

Phil, to adjust guitar action, should I loosen strings? It is Gibson tune-on-matic bridge. Thank you!

C00l😊 PS it really sounds great too

You should try Ruokangas guitars, a real masterbuild instruments!

Damn that guitar sounds amazing., warm yet crisp and articulate..well done..👍👍

Phil, love your channel. Newbie here (but 59 yo). Is the Mexican Fender Strat as high quality as a Schecter C-1 FR-S Apocalypse? I know they are 2 totally different sounds but just looking at overall quality. Thank you, Steve

No idea how you manage to read VALIENTE instead of VALENTI but hey the video is great!

Those pickups sound very bright and clear for humbuckers - what impedance are they?

As an ex Crimson Guitars luthier I can't believe he didn't know about the saddle screws sticking up. A common Strat issue and the reason I changed to highwood saddles.

Great looking and designed custom! I would like to know his compound radius.... and the E to E span of the bridge. I think The Gotoh are 2 1/8"? Anyhow, I would love someday if some builders can widen the design closer to a USA tele saddle span. Possibly widening the neck fretboard at the body to have a little wider string span - Like PRS? That then means Fender pole spaced humbuckers, especially at the bridge. This minor wish list will get an electric away from a rhythm strummer or an arpeggio speed shred guitar. Give the guitar more right hand techniques which means more personality of music and approach.

Excellent. And yes, I hate anything pointy sticking up from my bridge. Makes palm muting uncomfortable.

It's no MoonPie Guitar, but it looks pretty dang awesome.

Absolutely beautiful instrument. Sounds and looks amazing.