DoctorPaul's Guitar Emporium

CLAAS 'Moby Dick' Prototype

"Jonah"

#0514

 

Seriously ... what the hell?!  This one is a "Moby Dick" (I have NO idea, don't ask ...) made by Alexander Claas in Burgdorf, near Hanover, Germany. Alexander is a young whipper-snapper engineer, with proper old school Teutonic qualities; efficiency, effectiveness and "straight-to-the-point-ness" (although I'm guessing that isn't a proper word).  This is one of a few prototypes of the Moby Dick (really ... where the frig did he get THAT name from?!) made before it went into production.  As a result, it was used a few times on his promo videos for the model, and is featured on his web site.  Which is nice.

 

So, these are quite rare (try to find another ... go on, I dare you) and are hand made by Herr Claas, one at a time, with unnerving German accuracy and perfectness.  I imagine that he gets up at 5am, has an ice-shower, runs 20 miles then breakfasts on sauerkraut before donning his overalls and picking up his chisels, working like his life depended on it until everything ... EVERYTHING is just perfect.  That, as everyone knows, is how our German friends do shit.  Having discussed the build with Alexander, he insists that he has no CNC, and no access to a CNC, but rather carves each of these by hand, using saws, chisels, rasps and sandpaper.  Blimey.

 

So.  It's headless.  Which is odd.  Don't let the Steinberger folks tell you otherwise ... it IS odd, and there's no other way to put it.  The tuning system at the bridge takes the ball-ends, and the string is clamped at the nut.  The tuners pull on the strings in a straight line, which is more efficient and effective than wrapping the string around a tuning peg post, giving better tuning stability.  The neck joint (see the photos) is crazy.  100% pure bat-shit crazy.  BUT, as you'd expect, extremely effective and immaculately engineered, with stainless Allen bolts into threaded stainless inserts meaning that you could jump up and down on the neck joint for a whole month while wearing your Dr Martens, and it wouldn't budge.  Which is awesome, really.  Frets are stainless steel too, so they'll last forever, or thereabouts.  You'll see that it's a fan-fret (helping to keep the low B string nice and snappy), which is entirely natural to play ... it looks more crazy than it feels.  What else.  Yeah ... the body shape is clearly modelled on the shape of a spill of coffee, but feels fantastic when sitting or standing. 

 

The similarities between this and "Siebenhund" (my Siggery Deimos 7) are uncanny.  They both have a thick figured walnut cap over an ash body, both have an ebony board, are both 7-stringers with fanned frets, are both hand made by Germans, AND are both fitted with a pair of Seymour Duncan Blackout pickups.  So you'd think that they'd probably feel similar to one another and sound pretty much the same, right?  Dead wrong on the former, dead right on the latter.  They categorically feel VERY different to play, but I'll be the first to admit that they SOUND very similar ... which is understandable, as the influence of those SAVAGE pickups is overwhelming. The size and comfort of this really make it a lovely guitar to play.  Everything feels tremendously compact and the whole thing feels solid as granite.  Awesome.

 

The link takes you to The CLAAS website; the second link to the Image Gallery that includes the prototype instruments ...

... scroll down to "Moby Dick 0514 Prototype" for this guitar.