I went on a great adventure with my good friend Ronnie Czajkowski, master carpenter for Bruce Springsteen, who has also worked with Dead & Company and Billy Joel. Ronnie, after many phone calls, got me an audience with Johnny Depp. As I worked in my shop and watched his defamation lawsuit I really felt a […]
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Take a look at this engraving of a Cross and Sunrays into a Fender style pickguard shape. The pickguard is made of aluminum anodized Aztec gold color. When doing the engraving I cut thru the top layer of the anodizing color to reveal the grey aluminum underneath. I made this for […]
Take a look at this piece I painted called “The Green Fairy’s Lament” for my dear friend Nick Bautista on his Fender Tele. Nick is a painter/singer/songwriter. I incorporated a lot of symbolism in this piece that is taken from Nick’s artwork and his style/music. Check out all the pics
The last bunch of pics from the Nils Lofgren tribute guitar I did for Kyle and Carol! Nils signed the pickguard I made for Kyle and Carol when they met him at a concert. I handmade all the pieces on this beauty from the Spalted maple pickguard and tremolo cavity covers, the back battery cover […]
On Jerry Thrunk’s Gibson Acoustic guitar, there was a bad crack on the lower bout, and I designed a piece of Nigerian Ebony to follow the outside perimeter edge of the guitar to cover the crack. The inlay is of mother nature about to touch the earth and moon above her finger. The inlay consists […]
This instrument was made for my dear friend and guitar player Gene Deetz. Gene is like an Uncle to me. His custom-made Petillo 1966 theme 12-string electric (25 1/2 inch fingerboard scale) has deep meaning to him. This body shape was designed by my Father Dr. Phillip J. Petillo in the early 70’s. It was […]
1. Body Shape: double cutaway chambered thinline F hole (inspired by Gibson ES-335 chambering methods) 2. Body Wood: one piece – German figured maple top & back with Amazon mahogany center (edge bevel gives the illusion of thick binding & revealing the natural Amazon mahogany and maple grain lines) 3. Neck: nine piece lamination – […]
Check out Andrew Saul’s Fender Stratocaster fret micropolishing and set up! The process of micropolishing involes leveling off a business card worth of thickness off the tops of the frets to get the deep string coil dents out and the corrosion, then I reshaped the frets to their original state and micropolished them. My father […]
Boxing has many meanings to Billy Joel. Growing up he learned to box to help him defeat bullies and it has symbolism for fighting in the music industry to become one of the world’s greatest. The pickguard is made of black phenolic. Phenolic can take seasonal changes without cracking. My Father (Dr. Phil Petillo) used […]
This guitar took a year and a half of work, love and long nights. The fingerboard consists of 13 layers of mother of pearl, clam shell, abalone, 24k gold dust, stone and glass. The body is made of German quilted maple, Spanish cedar, Nigerian ebony and French walnut. The 11 piece neck laminations are layered […]
