Dismal Ax Road Dog Explorer
Up until now, the Road Dog series has consisted of Tele-style guitars with license plate pickguards, but when a request for an Explorer shaped ax with something interesting to fill the large expanse of body behind the bridge, the challenge was happily accepted by George at Dismal Ax.
The body is Sassafras, with a one piece Poplar barnwood top, sanded down below the grey weathering. The neck is Maple and Walnut, with a Black Locust fretboard. The pickup is a Porter classic humbucker modified with an Alnico 2 magnet after deciding the Alnico 5 it came with was a bit too thin sounding in the lower range. The pickguard was made from a piece of aluminum sheeting that must have come from the inside of an old industrial cooler or freezer unit. The primary feature of course is a hood emblem from a 1958 Buick Special, set into a round recess in the body.
The headstock shape was based on the one that was originally planned for the Gibson Explorer in the late ’50s which was quickly ditched in favor of the “hockey stick” headstock it ended up with, but tweaked the side profile on mine to allow proper string clearance around the tuner posts.
I’m trying to separate my personal taste from my definition of “hot”.
If you hung that on a wall with a few hundred other guitars, everyone who walked in the place would see it, squint their eyes, walk straight to that thing with hands on hips and heads tilting from side to side with “wtf” expressions on their faces…
Okay, that’s not necessarily a definition of “hot”, but I’d love to witness it, haha. 
Originally Posted by Warren Buffett
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