From start to finish, each of our guitars is built with the greatest possible attention to detail. Making the guitars by hand allows the use of construction methods and techniques that are rarely found on machine made guitars due to difficulties in transferring these methods to mass production.

Each guitar starts with inspection of the wood to be used. The two pieces of the Takoba’s mahogany body are individually shaped and attached to a central maple neck piece. The neck features a 12” radius ebony fingerboard and a double-action truss rod with two reinforcement bars for improved stability. The one-piece 'thru-neck' construction helps in giving the guitars a slightly sharper sound than found on guitars with bolt-on or set necks, while also increasing sustain.

After sanding the body and routing the cavities, the guitar is ready for finishing. The finish applied to the Takoba is designed to enhance its unique body styling in addition to protecting the wood and maintaining moisture content. Initial coats of filler, shellac sealer and primer are first applied. The guitar is subsequently finished with a metallic color coat, over which nitrocellulose lacquer is sprayed. After two weeks of curing time, the surface is wet-and-dry sanded by hand before being buffed to a perfect mirror-like, high-gloss finish.

When the guitar has been polished it is ready for final assembly and installation of the electronic components. The Takoba C-1 and C-2 use active EMG pickup systems. The low noise EMG pickups each include an integrated pre-amp, which helps to ensure consistency of tone. The system runs for approximately 1500 hours on a single 9 volt battery, with the system switching off when the cable is unplugged. Each guitar is fitted with a polished chrome backplate, engraved with a unique name.

After a final polish the guitars are set up and given a thorough workout to achieve optimal tone and playing performance.

Thomas Corbishley made his first guitar at the age of 16, when he decided his cheap mass-produced guitar was no longer adequate for the music he wanted to play. At the time, the choice of affordable instruments was fairly limited, being made up almost entirely of imitations of well-known guitar models. He set about making a unique instrument that would be more enjoyable to play and able to produce the range of sounds desired. The guitar produced was a success and an ambition to create more and better instruments was born.

After developing an interest in the relationship between music and science, Thomas gained a degree in Acoustical Engineering from the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) at the University of Southampton in the UK. He subsequently moved to California to work as an acoustical consultant and, while there, established Thomas Corbishley Guitars.

Thomas takes a scientific approach to guitar design, combining aspects from his knowledge of acoustics with his extensive playing experience to develop the instruments. This approach has enabled him to critically assess and improve upon the various 'standard' guitar designs produced by other guitar manufacturers.