Shop Spotlight: RebelRelic in Amsterdam

Of all the trouble you can get into in Amsterdam, a trip to RebelRelic may be the best kind. Their shop of vintage and custom, built-in-house guitars is more than just a store. It's an experience.

Talking with Luke Whitfield, the owner, is also an experience. We had the privilege of spending some quality time with him in Germany this past April for Musikmesse [Europe's answer to NAMM]. Over the course of several days (and a fair amount of whiskey), we saw firsthand Luke's passion for creating custom builds and using Reverb.

RebelRelic perfectly captures the spirit of what Reverb is about: building something from the ground up, building a brand and community around the love of gear, and doing right by your customers. They make some incredible custom models, too.

We recently caught up with Luke and got into it about his start, the shop, and finding that one vintage piece you can never quite find...

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How has your buying and selling of vintage guitars influenced your own builds?

Well, I guess it's a bit telling of my age but all my first guitars were vintage guitars [laughs], starting with a 1966 Fender Mustang in Lake Placid Blue with racing stripes.

My step dad bought it for me on 48th Street in New York City in 1973 for $125 if I promised to go to school everyday. Or at least more often. Once I had that guitar, I forgot about my end of the bargain.

I loved the guitar and played it a lot, but I wasn't too happy with the slide switches. So I crafted my own custom guard out of some masonite. The dull, woody color of it appealed to me. Plus, it was the only material I could find at the time.

I installed some steel toggle switches to give it a bit of a low-tech look. The finish started to get a few chips from all the rigorous preteen playing, so I chipped the rest of the LPB off to get down to the Fullerplast underneath.

I stuck a big Buddha decal on the back and was very pleased with my personalization of it. Now, 43 years later, I'm all about the originality of vintage guitars. With RebelRelic Guitars, I keep some room for personalization on the custom orders.

What goes into creating a relic finish?

When I do a restoration refinish, I have to age them to look as they would if they had naturally worn. It's taken years of restoring vintage guitars to become steeped in what original wear looks like.

It’s not just the playing wear on the body and neck. The metal and plastic parts also took a lot of self-taught technique. I cooked up toxic chemicals in my kitchen in the early days. My wife would say that she and the kids couldn’t breathe, and that I had to find a proper workplace.

The original vintage guitars always showed me what the result should look like, but it took years and years of trial and error to find a way to achieve that realistic aging. There were no books out on this stuff back then. I haven't shared any of my trade tricks so far. Maybe later.

Your shop seems to have a lot of Stratocasters. Is that your go-to body shape? What makes it stand out for you against other classic guitars?

Actually, I was a diehard Telecaster guy at first, but once I picked this 1955 Stratocaster with a V-shape neck. I noticed how it had its own Strat-y tone even unplugged. I’ve loved [Strats], too, ever since.

With RebelRelic Guitars, we do much more with the Tele shape because for us it's more versatile. We do a series of Thinline Teles and make a model called the Holy Grail (see it here), which is our interpretation of the original Esquire. Great with Bigsby B5 Tremolo and TV Jones pickups. Lots of fun, lots of choices.

What's your goal when building and finishing your line of custom guitars? What kind of player are they intended for?

I'd say that we at RebelRelic build guitars for the vintage-lover. Enough said.

What's one vintage guitar you've never owned but would love to one day?

Just one? Oh, man. Painful question. I'm not sure. I'm looking for it every day on Reverb, though. I'll know it when I see it.

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