There is nothing worse than a headstock break, apart from when it’s happened a couple of times before. A local-to-me pro blues guitarist has long used a late-60s Gibson ES-335 (already repaired on a couple of occasions) and despite pleas from my good self – and said guitar player’s family – he was still taking it out on tour. Until, that is, it suffered another headstock break. And looking at the pictures it’s going to need some divine intervention to fix. I suggested we could probably mod a beater to fulfil some upcoming dates, but as neither of us had a suitable donor guitar, that was as far as that idea went.
The thing is, once you plant a seed it’s hard to shake off and so I began to ask around to see if anyone I knew had a semi going for peanuts that I could fix up. I received a few offers but nothing that, a) I could afford, or b) actually inspired me. But then I was offered a bit of a leftfield choice: a Hutchins Chandler
