Farnell Ultra-Lite 90s - Blue/Green

This is a Farnell Ultra-Lite. We believe it's an earlier, made-in-the-USA, 90s guitar. The easiest way to describe the construction is surf board. There's a lot more detail below from the Farnell website. The finish is tricky to photograph. It may look more blue against the green background and if we get time, we may try a black or white background. First, it may look a little flat, or heavily swirled, but it's not. It's a flake based satin finish. It's also somewhere between pelham blue and ocean water green. It may have a bit of shift in the flakes. We can say that it stands out, without being gaudy. People notice it. It is very light at 7 pounds, feels like a thinline or lighter, well balanced, and sounds like an LP on steroids with more definition, brighter with tone dimed, and some great sounding growl with the volume up, and generates super articulate distortion dimed with a bit of extra gain in the amp. The site says the specific type of foam in the body adds resonance, and we believe them. Most players have been able to find their tone (excepting the twangy single coil folks), and discover a few others. Not sure if this was intended, but the shape is also very effective, the out-curved horns of the cutaways make it easier to get your fingers above the neck with thumb at mid curve, if you like that technique, and the exagerated lower left bout is exceptionally comfortable under the picking arm. It's more stable, easier to maintain position when standing or moving and playing, and avoids iritation of the forearm or elbow resting on the bout, and then it's light so it never fights you.

There is some wear on the back of the neck near the head stock. It's pictured. We didn't notice it playing, only when we went to inventory condition. There are a couple of nicks around the upper strap button and one on the back edge of the lower left bout. In some photos, the color may appear slightly blotchy... it is not. These are reflections of the photographer and equipment, which was also hard to avoid while capturing the color.

If you need an S, T, or LP to match tones on covers, then it's not for you. If you're looking for something that will let you get creative

Here's the history of the construction design and techniques of this guitar from Al Farnell, though we understand he sold the business to Jeff Hansen.

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From the desk of Al Farnell:In 1984:

I moved to Laughlin Nevada, and a year later in 1985 I awoke to remember a dream that I had a super light guitar that was made of Styrofoam. The next day I attempted to build one. After completing one with a conventional wood neck, the body snapped in half (oops) but that wasn’t too hard to figure out why. So next phase I ran two quarter inch dowel rods down the center of the body, that helped but after a day it looked like a potato chip. Next phase, I made the insert a solid wood piece about four inches wide and stopped at the bridge, along with this change I also changed the foam to “Ethafoam” which is what a boogie board is made of. Just by chance I had an old one in my garage and after cutting it in half, I noticed it contained what looked like small air pockets unlike Styrofoam which is solid and dense. I came to learn this is called “closed cell foam“ and I think that was my breakthrough in guitar building technology. Why does it work? The cells expand when vibrations are applied then decompress over and over, kind of like the way an ear drum works. Next phase was to fabricate the guitar in a shell like casing, so my first choice was Sintra, Sintra is a flat sheet of PVC. So the first born Ultra-Lite guitar and bass was made of PVC, wood and Etha-foam. After six years, of a lot of money spent for patents and R&D, ect… I moved back to California in 1990 and started working for a boat manufacturer. After working there for about a month I saw how they built boats from molds so I said why not take my favorite wooden strat and fill all the cavities with “bondo” and make a mold from it. I did and two months later I had a two piece body that was seamed together along with the wood insert and injected with packing foam, the Ultra-Lite was back in action sounding better than ever and lighter than ever. After struggling for the next nine years with trade shows and adding more patents the money was tight. So sometimes I would have to put development on hold until more funding caught up. While working on a music video as the motor coach driver for a very well known band, my boss, who was driving the production coach, saw the guitar player of this band pick up one of my guitars and play it almost every extra minute he had in the two days we were with them. So he asked, why is this guitar player so intrigued with your guitar? I told him all about it, long story short…we were incorporated two weeks later and had an investor. After doing more R&D with the available funds I needed, I took the surfboard theory and applied it to my bodies. Now the insert goes all the way through the body, end to end and I use a ten-pound high density, closed cell polyurethane foam. About in the middle of the insert I remove the wood one-inch deep and replace it with the foam where the pick-up cavities are, this area is called our patented "sound reservoir". Now when the pick-up cavities are routed, the pick-ups set in the body surrounded by the exposed open cells. “Thunderous”, is the only term I can think of to describe the tones and percussive sound that these guitars and basses provide. Some of my past sales reps describe the ultra-lite as a "Les Paul on steroids" without the weight.