MJT USA VTS Stratocaster Custom - Steve Hillage Relic 2015 - Relic natural Ash

2015 MJT (USA) VTS Stratocaster 

This is a 2015 full MJT Factory factory ‘VTS’ build by Mark Jenny (MJT) in Carthage, Missouri, USA.

It is based on a guitar owned by Steve Hillage and has ‘no expense spared’ specifications.  Steve Hillage was a huge part of the ‘Canterbury Scene’ and at the pinnacle of UK Prog Rock in the 70’s & 80’s, the original guitar can be seen on the cover of his ‘L’ & Motivation Radio albums and was used live and in the studio for many years.  

Mark Jenny custom built it based on photograph’s of the original guitar.  It has a highly figured, lightweight swamp Ash body, finished in black nitro, then stripped back to match the pics.  The custom MJT VTS neck was made by Musikraft with a 12” radius, Stainless Steel jumbo frets and a fat back profile. (Similar to a 58 Gibson neck).  It has a set of Lindy Fralin (USA) hand wound Vintage pickups (£300) which are just pure Strat.  Aged hardware with a Calaham heavy trem block and Custom Engineering saddles.  It plays and sounds great and has fantastic mojo, no one seems to make a relic natural wood guitar and it was, apparently, quite a challenge but MJT pulled it off.