The Tale of Two Flip Flop Guitars by Bruce Kulick of KISS

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see the Bruce Kulick Story of his AXN GUITAR Posted in April 2020 on facebook and his web site

In 2019 and 2020 Bruce Kulick and i worked together to re-create his 1983 ESP guitar. This guitar was used for many live shows with KISS in the 1980s. Bruce used this guitar on MTV. Bruce Kulick has his 1983 ESP guitar hanging in the Hard Rock Cafe in London England near one of Eric Clapton’s guitars.

I have shown some photos of this AXN custom guitar at the following link >>> AXN Bruce Kulick Flip Flop Burst <<<

I have to thank my friend Bruce from the band KISS for being so supportive of AXN Guitars. Bruce and I are working on some future AXN guitars models together and i appreciate his technical input and design notes. These suggestions help me to continue to define 1980s metal.

Bruce is one of the hardest working rockers out there with so much energy and drive. Bruce is just plain inspirational. Keep a lookout for The Bruce Kulick band with front man Todd Kerns! Support them and their music.

HERE IS A LINK TO THE FULL VIDEO >> Bruce on his AXN <<

AXN BRUCE KULICK FLIP FLOP BURST

AXN BRUCE KULICK FLIP FLOP BURST

AXN™ Introduces Another Period Correct Vintage 80s Body Style

Vintage & New Body Style - AXN™ Introduces Another Period Correct Vintage 80s Body Style Into the 2020 Line of Guitars.

This body style would appear typical at first glance. Some of you guys might call it a Jackson Dinky or an ESP Kamikaze body shape. Could it be a 1989 Baretta 2 guitar body shape? This design is a favorite for some yet for others its sleek lines stray away from a traditional Fender Stratocaster just a bit to far.

The pictures posted here were taken in 2019. Shown is an AXN™ Prototype body. It has 2 piece maple construction with a center seem. With AXN circular control cavity in the back. A single humbucker is the only pickup. The tremolo posts are for a modern Floyd Rose Original Tremolo. In 2020 we have moved to the Flat Head type mid-1980s tremolo posts for period correct authenticity.

Maple wood brings you back to the 80s. It was known to be a popular wood for the famous shredders of the day. Now they use alder guitars because its a lighter wood and easier on the back.

AXN Rising Sun 05/05 Gone !

2018 AXN™ SunsetStrip™ Relic Rising Sun

Here is #1 Rising Sun of 5 made exactly like this

  • Body Wood - Premium Alder

  • ( 2-piece & center-joined wood body )

  • New Dimarzio Super Distortion

  • One Humbucker Body

  • Art is REPLICATED OFF an ACTUAL 1982 CHARVEL

  • Custom Clear-Coat-Free Paint | Heavy Relic

  • 6105 Fret Size

  • R3 nut

  • Neck Shape Dimarzio Charvel

That Famous NECK SHAPE ! what no one else knows the dimensions?

You Can Get Close or You Can Get an AXN™

Our AXN™ neck shapes are a result of over 30 years of research which resulted in hundreds of pages of data and over 2000 technical entries. We are the only luthiers that have collectively documented historic neck imprints taken from the famous 1980s guitars. With white glove reverence we recorded the neck shapes, neck profiles and fingerboard radiuses along with other unique information 100% accurately.

AXN Model 3 F-Bird Style 2020 PROTOTYPE - Finally!!

AXN Model 3 PROTOTYPE

AXN Model 3 PROTOTYPE

This model has been in the works for some time. In my mind, I might have even been going back and forth on the details for two decades, even before I started AXN™ Guitars.

In his Glendora California shop Mr. Grover Jackson made one of these for a friend of mine John from the Inland Empire California band called Roxanne. Ive loved these guitars ever since my days hanging around the Green Door RockNRoll Club in Montclair California around 1985-1986!

This one is hand made from only the best of the best woods and hardware!

AXN Model 3

  1. Neck : Oil Finish

  2. Nut : 1-11/16" R10

  3. Fretboard : Prime Quartersawn MAPLE

  4. Neck Shape : AXN™

  5. Fretboard Radius : 15"

  6. Frets : 22

  7. Pickup : JB

  8. Body Wood : Maple 2-piece center joined

  9. Paint Color : Creme

  10. Bridge & Nut : 2019 Floyd Rose 1984 Chrome

  11. Sustain Block : AXN™ SuperWide™ 42mm

  12. Volume : Bourns 500K

  13. Wiring : Mil 27500 Miltary Grade

  14. AXN™ Adjustable Treble Bleed Circuit

  15. Tuners : Gotoh

AXN™ GUITAR - RED MAKES HISTORY

NOTE : WE PLAN TO MANUFACTURE SOME RED GUITARS - WATCH IN 2020

AXN™ RED HISTORIC

This AXN™ is run of three guitars. Using historical data we manufactured three necks and three bodies in an experiment to chase the early VH1 album tone using a specific humbucker pickup. A vintage 1979 Dimarzio SD Pickup reacts to certain woods. Therefore we used Carolina Poplar body wood of the same type Kramer Neptune NJ used on the1983 Baretta.

Holy Grail Banana Hockey Stick Headstock

  • Neck : Oil Finish

  • Nut : 1-11/16"

  • Fretboard : Prime Quartersawn MAPLE

  • Neck Shape : Holy Grail

  • Neck Profile : Holy Grail

  • Fretboard Radius : Holy Grail

  • Frets : Holy Grail same

  • Guitar Weight 7.15 lbs

  • Pickup : Vintage 1979 Dimarzio Super Distortion

  • Body Wood : Carolina Poplar 2-piece center joined

  • Paint Color : Red

  • Bridge & Nut : 2019 Floyd Rose 1984 Chrome

  • Sustain Block : AXN™ SuperWide™ 42mm

  • Volume : Bourns 500K

  • Wiring : Mil 27500 Miltary Grade

  • AXN™ Adjustable Treble Bleed Circuit

  • Tuners : Gotoh

  • Scale : 25.5"

  • Gig Bag Included


AXN™ Guitars New Model Sneak Peak

My luthier and I manufactured a run of four AXN™ guitars with this shape. The red version started the idea as a custom order. So I was asked to make a Firebird with a Floyd Rose and we made four :-) … boy these take a lot of wood to manufacture but we like them

I want your opinion

What about you Charvel Jackson guys?

What do you think about us making this body style?

What AXN™ headstock would look best? A reverse headstock?

Let us know…Send Johnny an Email



AXN™ MAHOGANY STAR RELIC - RUN OF FIVE ( 5 guitars )

AXN™ MODEL-2 RELIC - MAHOGANY BODY / MAPLE NECK

http://alienxnation.com/available/axn-mahogany-star

This was a run of 5 guitars. The first two went to an artist and those two guitars are being used live as a main and a backup. We manufactured the five total… this one was made with a Flamey Maple wood neck. This one #05/05 was also was manufactured special to be stocked in our online store also at online retail locations for purchase.

  • Floyd Rose + AXN™SuperWide PLUS Block

  • 2019 AXN™ Guitar MADE IN USA

  • 100% Satisfaction Guarantee !!

  • One year manufacturers' warranty

  • Reverse Headstock Maple Fretboard

  • Neck : Flamey Maple with Oil Finish

  • Nut : Floyd Rose 1-11/16" - R10

  • Fretboard : Quartersawn Maple AXN™ relic

  • Neck Shape : AXN™ Standard

  • Neck Profile : AXN™ Standard

  • Fretboard Radius : 15"

  • Frets : AXN™ = Dunlop 6000

  • Body Wood : Maple 2-piece center joined Mahogany

  • Paint Color : AXN™ No-Clearcoat

  • Nut : New Floyd Rose R10 15” radius

  • Sustain Block : AXN™ SuperWide™ PLUS 42mm

  • Pickup : NOS Jackson J-80 Alnico 13oHms

  • Volume : Bourns 500K

  • Wiring : Mil 27500 Miltary Grade

  • AXN™ Adjustable Treble Bleed Circuit

  • Tuners : Gotoh Reverse Premium

  • Scale : 25.5"

  • Gig Bag Included

For Retail Sale - AXN™ SUPERWIDE™ PLUS SUSTAIN BLOCK

We are happy to announce that our flagship sustain block is now for retail sale. You can buy direct and save $$ here >>

http://alienxnation.com/guitar-bridges/axn-superwide-plus-sustain-block

Manufactured and Machined by hand IN THE USA - 42mm Size Block

  • MANUFACTURED IN THE USA by an Aerospace machine shop

  • Up-To 7X the size of Floyd Rose® blocks

  • Unimaginable gains in sustain and whammy bar effect

  • Perfect weight for creative soloing antics

  • Manufactured in the USA from prime American metals

  • Based off the original EVH 5150 sustain block

  • Modern Metallurgy used during research and development

  • Exclusive feature of our AXN™ Custom Guitars and now available to you!

  • Easy To Install

  • ONLY available in size 42mm ( for the biggest block and the biggest tone )

Dragons - AXN™ Guitars Sneak Peak

Heres what we have been cooking up at AXN™ Guitars. Now this one is off to get a photoshoot…This Dragon guitar is #01/03. The second one delivered in march 2019 to happy AXN™ customer Tommy D!!

  • AXN™ Standard Neck Profile

  • 1981 D100 Dimarzio Super Distortion ( vintage )

  • Mahogany Neck

  • Rosewood Fretboard

  • Prime Alder 2-piece center-joined body

  • Painted Dragon Artwork

  • Crackle Purple Paint on back

  • New Floyd Rose

  • AXN™ SuperWide™ Sustain Block

  • AXN™ Custom Treble Bleed Circuit

  • JEL Pearl Gotoh Tuners

  • Hard Relic

AXN™ Guitar Neck Shapes Revealed

Our AXN™ neck shapes are a result of over 30 years of research which resulted in hundreds of pages of data and over 2000 technical entries. We are the only luthiers that have collectively documented historic neck imprints taken from the famous 1980s guitars. MORE >

http://alienxnation.com/axn-neck-shapes

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axn-grail-shape.jpg

You Can Get Close or You Can Get an AXN™ Our AXN™ neck shapes are a result of over 30 years of research which resulted in hundreds of pages of data and over 2000 technical entries. We are the only luthiers that have collectively documented historic neck imprints taken from the famous 1980s guitars.

AXN™ Guitars Video - Typical Build 2019

AXN™ ABOUT US PAGE ] [ AVAILABLE STOCK ]

AXN™ Guitars Typical BuilD

What do we stand for and what is an AXN™ Guitar About?

The above video displays parts of our daily manufacturing routine in a 42 second AXN™ Guitars Video Short.

AXN™ Guitars are 100% Period Correct. Our mentors were those great luthiers from the 1980s and before. It is from them we learned the secrets to manufacturing an electric guitar the old-school way.

For us sorting through raw guitar tone-woods is exciting. Picking maple wood for the guitar in this video is an excellent example of some good times!

The AXN™ Model2 guitar in the above video was manufactured from prime woods. Every AXN™ surpasses by far the quality of any production line guitar! Our guitars are what we call “Luthier Grade” because any skilled luthier would consider our work highest quality.

If you give a closer look you can see that we made this AXN™ guitar body from 2 pieces of center-joined white maple. A design that creates robust tone. 

The AXN™ guitar neck in this video we manufactured from extremely flamed or tiger striped maple wood. The white mother of pearl fret markers with our unique AXN™ fretboard relic-ing and perfect fretwork creates a true work of art.

After finishing this new AXN™ becomes an aged guitar. The video footage demonstrates the transformation from new-to-aged.

At the end of this video is our AXN™ Guitar in all its glory. With our proprietary  AXN™ SuperWide™ Sustain Block and a new German made Tremolo - our AXN™ Guitars deliver the Ultimate Floyd Rose experience.

The result is a tone-monster. This guitar produces a huge bottom end with articulate highs and excellent mid range attack. With a hard wood like white maple the “snappy-ness” of the string is such that this guitar achieves near-endless sustain. Since our guitars don’t have traditional tone-killing clear coat every note sings on and on forever.

The #1/5 Maple Reverse White Star guitars we manufactured and sold in 2019 that appeared in this video is displayed here AXN Maple Reverse Headstock with White Star Artwork.

So there we have it. One example of an AXN™ Guitar. That said, every guitar we manufacture is hand made just one guitar at a time. Of course, all our guitars are manufactured in the USA… You Can Get Close or You Can Get an AXN™ 

Please view our AXN™ Guitars Available for Purchase Page. Remember we manufacture very few guitars every year. Pre-Order yours exactly the way you want!


Photo Gallery - AXN™-83' STANDARD GUITAR

Celebrate The Magic of Made in USA Guitars 2019

Join us in celebrating not just our AXN™ guitars but all the other small USA guitar shops that are putting out instruments that make a difference. Guitars that are built out of love of the awesome woods, frets and pickups. Let us all in 2019 celebrate the magic of a superbly manufactured RockNRoll guitar.

AXN™ Guitars - Attention to Every Small detail

With equal parts inspiration, perspiration and preparation.

Our AXN™ guitars are hand made works of art. They have a level of accuracy and inspirational quality that is far beyond the standard. Every piece of wood is the best tone-wood available. We get our hands dirty here in the USA and manufacture these guitar the old school way! Every ding, every dent, scratch and imperfection is positioned precisely.



AXN™ Guitars - Secrets to A One Humbucker Only Guitar Pt. 1

At AXN™ Guitars we believe that for hard rock music the single humbucker guitar can be an important guitar to have in your arsenal. As a matter of fact we believe that a single humbucker guitar is the ONLY guitar you need on stage if you play hard rock.

After decades of experimenting, testing R&D and live performance trials we have perfected the right formula making that sparkling clean sound and a balls-to-the-wall metal tone achievable.

The answer is achieving what we call “headroom” ( A definition of Headroom ). Headroom is achieved from the right combination of quality humbucker pickup, awesome 500k volume pot and a robust wiring system.

Some things we do to achieve the perfect tone from a single humbucker is very small control cavity and pickup routing to keep precious tone-wood and our AXN™ Electronics Grounding System so your Humbucker sings at maximum. Completely shielded electronics cavities and a 500k Bourns volume pot and now Aerospace Mil Spec M27500 wire/rope throughout the guitar.

We also utilize a custom sophisticated AXN™ Adjustable Treble Bleed Circuit that keeps just the right amount of mid-tones, treble and cleans when you back off the volume and back-out distortion. Thats why theres no need for a neck pickup when you perform hard rock-n-roll music.

In future articles we will reveal some more subtle details about our AXN™ Guitars and the secrets to a one humbucker only guitar. We do have a reference page with more information here AXN™ Tone Secrets.

Photos - ( Aerospace Grade Mil Spec M27500 wiring & A Bourns 500K Volume pot with our Treble Bleed Circuit )

AXN™ Mr. Scary Guitar Final #02 of two

http://alienxnation.com/available/mr-scary-axn-guitar

for sale here>>> http://alienxnation.com/available/mr-scary-axn-guitar

Two AXN™ Guitars were made with this artwork which is very very time consuming and the art and relic is more detailed than George Lynch’s original. This is the Last One we will manufacture and discontinued. This guitar requires 2X the production hours than most of our AXN™ Guitars. No corners were cut. Every aspect of this guitar has the highest grade and highest accuracy to the original Mr.Scary. Much better quality guitar than the original Kramer Pacer.

We’ve included a new Floyd Rose made in Germany complete system with our AXN™ SuperWide™ sustain block for the ultimate Floyd Rose experience and tone! This ones got an accurate Holy Grail Kramer Banana headstock and the most collectible vintage Seymour Duncan JB wound in 1985 by Juarez.. just like George used!

  • This was the guitar AXN™ on display at various trade shows worldwide

  • Final AXN™ with this artwork

  • AXN™ Model 2 Guitar

  • This guitar has George Lynch's playing
    preferences from 1985. Specifications taken
    from this guitar 1985 Kramer Kamikaze

  • Hand Painted Graphics

  • Bridge - NEW 1984 Floyd Rose Tremolo Made In Germany Tremolo

  • With one of our 2018 AXN™ SuperWide™ Sustain Block - the ultimate sustain

  • Vintage 1985 Seymour Duncan JBJ Pickup - ( 300$+ value ) collectable pickup

  • Controls - Perfectly Placed Volume Knob

  • Bourns 500K with custom Treble Bleed Circuit

  • Rosewood Neck / Walnut Skunk Stripe

  • Prime Alder 2-Piece Body Center Joined

  • AXN™ Banana Headstock

  • 1985 Kamikaze Prototype Neck Profile

  • Fretboard - CUSTOM radius

  • Fret Size CUSTOM

  • Truss Rod - Dual Acting

  • Scale 25.5"

  • Gig Bag Included

  • Finish Custom ART - Relic'd

AXN™ SuperWide™ Sustain Block & ONLY made in Germany Floyds!

October 3, 2018

Scottsdale Arizona — AXN™ made in USA Guitars uses an intuitive design approach taking from both modern and vintage ideas. For example the back of our AXN™ Model 2 guitar has a custom size tremolo cavity hole. It is a precise fit for our humongous AXN™ Sustain Block yet does not lose precious guitar tone-wood. We coupled our sustain block with a new German Floyd Rose Tremolo for the Ultimate Floyd Rose Experience.

* ONLY New Germany Made Floyd Rose


* AXN™ SuperWide™ USA Made Sustain Block


* AXN™ Custom Designed Tremolo Cavity


* Ultimate Floyd Rose Experience


Our specialized AXN™ SuperWide™ Sustain Block is effectively five Times Larger than a standard Floyd Rose sustain block. Every AXN™ Model 2 guitar comes standard with a new Floyd Rose tremolo fitted with our AXN™ SuperWide™ Sustain block. These features add up to a guitar with unmatched resonance, clarity and sustain delivering a Floyd Rose Experience like no other guitar. 

Our AXN™ Guitars as well as our AXN™ Sustain Blocks are made in the United States of America. In addition every Floyd Rose tremolo we put on our AXN™s are made in Germany Floyds! You can get close or you can get an AXN™.