Buying your guitar
First and foremost, it is important that you get the custom guitar that you truly want. To help you do that, we provide several payment options.
Payment Options
There are two ways to pay with either Paypal, cashier’s check or bank transfer. *Paypal pay in full only when ordering directly off the website*
- Pay in full up-front.
- Pay half up-front, and the other half when the guitar is ready to ship.
Expect your order to take at least 8 weeks from the time of initial payment. Your body, neck, and hardware are selected right after your initial payment and work is started almost immediately. Lacquer is humidity sensitive and spraying (painting) in unfit weather conditions will ruin a finish. Circumstances like mother nature is beyond our control and can add time to your project. We will set expectations accordingly when this occurs. We NEVER drag our feet on projects and we NEVER rush on projects to ensure each guitar is the best it can possibly be. Although your wait can be extended sometimes your guitar will never take longer than it has to. We want to play it, photograph it, demo it and show it to the world just as bad as you want it in your hands. Email us any time for updates during your build.
Shipping
We ship our guitars internationally via United States Postal Service (USPS) Priority Mail. We are proud to offer $75 worldwide shipping to all countries with a 108 maximum mail dimension. If your country differs from this limit the $75 worldwide shipping does not apply.
For example, Australia has a maximum size limit of 79 inches when using USPS Priority. This is smaller than a guitar case, so we cannot offer $75 shipping and must use USPS Express at an additional cost.
Our Materials
At McLoughlin Guitars, we are passionate about using the highest quality materials. We love beautiful flame maple, premium alder, and the best quality hardware available. We use only the highest quality wood from respected dealers. We want our guitars to stand up to the rigors of the road, so we don’t skimp on quality parts.
We also love the look and feel of a guitar that has seen the road. A gigging guitar has soul, and we aim to capture the essence that only hundreds (or thousands) of live performances can do. We obsess over the details of a well-aged guitar, both aesthetically and tonally. When you pick up one of our distressed guitars, it will feel like it has been played for decades.
Highest Quality Bodies
We specialize in the highest quality bodies made from the tonewood of your choice. Our most popular models sport premium alder, which is known for it’s strength and clear, full-bodied sound. The premium cuts of alder we use are a beautiful white natural color with straight grain pattern and no streaks or knots. It looks superb in our aged finishes peeking out from under opaque nitrocellulose lacquer. Certain transparent finishes and sunburst finishes really make alder into a showpiece.
Our bodies can be ordered in a wide variety of different tonewoods, with swamp ash and rosewood being our most popular upgraded options.
If your dream guitar is a little more unique, we offer a wide variety of different body types, cavity routes, specialty neck pockets, binding, or other upgrades that’s ok… we can do that. Just contact us with the details or use our Custom Guitar Builder to explain the details!
Aged to perfection
Our forte’ is distressing and aging our guitars to achieve that special feeling and tone that can only be earned from years on the road. We offer a variety of different aging levels:
- Classic – Very close to NOS, maybe a ding or blemish here and there. Shows minimal signs of wear.
- Light – A few dings here and there, light tarnishing on the hardware, looks played but taken care of and never gigged with.
- Medium – The closest aging to look like an authentic vintage instrument . Aged hardware, some belt rash, a little forearm arm wear, dings around the edges and a scratch here and there.
- Heavy – Large arm wear, large belt rash, dings and scratches all over the place, worn paint finish, looks like its been gigged with its entire life on a regular basis.
- Ultimate – More wood showing than paint. Most comfortable to play and sounds the best since there is little finish.
This is where much of our customization comes in. If you have a desired look or feel that you’re going for, just let us know and we’ll incorporate your desired age and distress level. This picture is of our exclusive build for our Facebook fans, an Ultimate distressed guitar in Lake Placid Blue.
Custom Necks From Premium Hardwood
Our necks are made from the highest quality hardwood. We offer fretboards in maple, dark rosewood, ebony, richlite, Brazilian walnut, pao farro, etc. We particularly love premium flame and birdseye maple, cut to your favorite neck profile.
Our most popular neck is a medium C shape, 6105 frets, 1.65 nut width and a 9.5 radius. This neck shape works well for small or large hands. The radius is that of vintage neck that has been re-fretted a few times. Not too flat and not too curved. This fret size is well suited for almost every playing style. This neck is just right!
Necks can be ordered to your specifications. If you want a certain fret size, radius, nut width, neck shape… we can do that!
Pickups to match your desired tone
To provide the vintage tone you desire, we are proud to offer Klein Epic Series pickups. These premium pickups are exact vintage reproductions from 1954-1963 or 1969 and they can be added to your guitar for an additional charge. Please specify the desired year and pickup configuration when placing your order. If vintage reproductions aren’t your thing but you’re still after that clear blues tone, we also offer Klein S-5 Scooped Mid pickups. We are most known for our Black1 Clone pickups out there. These are a $250 option and use the same magnets and wire as the originals. They have been designed to exacting standards to offer the same impedance, inductance, resistance and output as the real thing. Don’t be mistaken: these are not re-boxed or re-branded pickups, this is our own exclusive design that you can only find here.
We are happy to use any pickups you desire. Any pickups under $150 are included free of charge, and we will only charge the difference for those over $150. For example: if you want $180 pickups we will only charge you $30. Simply let us know what your desired pickup configuration is and we’ll provide you a quote prior to placing your order.
The best hardware, aged to match
We believe that the finishing touches make the guitar. We are happy to offer a wide variety of pickguards that are customized to your liking. Our guitars come fully-shielded and feature premium electronics: shielded 22g luthier pushback wire, 250k CTS pots, 5-way Oak Grigsby switch and capacitors to fit the project. .022k for some, .05k for others, .1k for others… you get the idea! If you have a specific pickguard or customizations be sure to ask – we can do that!
Our guitars are distressed down to the smallest detail and feature pickup covers, knobs, hardware and tremolos that are aged to match the style of your dream guitar perfectly.
Made to be played
All of our guitars come professionally set-up and fully intonated including your choice of strings. They are ready to be played live or record!
If you’re planning to take this guitar on the road we also offer basic black or tweed cases. You can upgrade to a premium G&G case for an additional charge, or you can purchase an elite distressed case for that authentic road-worn feel.
Interested yet? If so, shoot us an email at toomanypedals@hotmail.com!
Find out what our other customers are saying on our Testimonials page!
Terms of Sale
You acknowledge that if you are purchasing a guitar that it is not a genuine Fender product. This site (mclguitars.com) is not affiliated with Fender Musical Instruments Corp or individual artists in any way. All hardware sold was purchased in new condition from a second hand dealer and if appropriate, aged by our employees.
All orders ship approximately 8-12 weeks of purchase. Custom orders are usually 10-12 weeks or more depending on the build complexity and/or artwork. Shipping times are approximated and not guaranteed.
Our guitars are custom-built items, so no refunds or returns can be accepted after a payment has been received. Payments are subject to the terms of PayPal’s User Agreement Section 13.3, which states that payments are not reimbursable for custom-built items. Due to new CITES restrictions on rosewood, any orders placed outside the United States for guitars that include rosewood will have the rosewood replaced with a suitable, high quality wood selection that is CITES compliant.
All guitars are custom ordered to a specific individual. No returns are accepted.
We sell distressed guitars. Every single guitar we sell will show some signs of natural wear.
All guitars and hardware are fully functioning and guitars come fully set up and ready to play live or record. Your individual set up preference may differ from ours. We set them up ideally per project. High action on an SRV, low action on a flat radius shredder, etc. Fender does not endorse our products. This site (mclguitars.com) does not sell Fender guitars and does not sell them as Fender guitars. McLoughlin Guitars does not and will not use any Fender FMIC trademarks of any kind. Please do not ask us to do so.