Late NGD: Nugent Zebra

If I recall correctly,that guitar sold in the Ted Nugent World Bowhunters catalog for $1602.00 USD new circa 1990 or so.I wanted one real bad,but could not swing that much for a guitar at that time.Seems like a good deal now though!!
Congratulations on the restoration.Looks like a great instrument.
 
Forgive my newness, but what is the story on this? Was there only the one ted played or were there more?
Sounds like some folks know the back story on this one...
Just curious. ..
 
Forgive my newness, but what is the story on this? Was there only the one ted played or were there more?
Sounds like some folks know the back story on this one...
Just curious. ..


Again Shawn may have more info..... but I think the story goes something along the lines of....

PRS built a few for Nugent (I think like 2 set Neck and a bolt-on???). After those guitars he ordered a handfull (not sure how many..... maybe a dozen??) some for him and some were sold through a shop he had (ahunting shop??).

Some had a really thin neck to his specs..... but I don't know if they all did.

This one had had most of the finish stripped from all but the cavities.

I think the differences were the neck carve and the Zebra paint job.

I don't think it was ever an 'artist mode' just a handful of guitars with that paint job.

I remember seing it in a guitar mag years ago and always thought it was pretty cool.
 
I'm not the gonna lie, the pink belly part just does it for me. So awesome!
 
Again Shawn may have more info..... but I think the story goes something along the lines of....

PRS built a few for Nugent (I think like 2 set Neck and a bolt-on???). After those guitars he ordered a handfull (not sure how many..... maybe a dozen??) some for him and some were sold through a shop he had (ahunting shop??).

Some had a really thin neck to his specs..... but I don't know if they all did.

This one had had most of the finish stripped from all but the cavities.

I think the differences were the neck carve and the Zebra paint job.

I don't think it was ever an 'artist mode' just a handful of guitars with that paint job.

I remember seing it in a guitar mag years ago and always thought it was pretty cool.
Hi, I'm new here and I was the guy who painted the original Whackmaster for Ted back in the late eighties.

Ted sent the shop a Polaroid photo of a factory custom Ford Bronco that had a zebra stripe paint job and had asked that we recreate the motif on his latest custom to come through the shop dusty belly and all..(can't remember if it was one of the new semi hollow bodies or not as they were a hot ticket right after we got the inverted pin router) Anyhow we were told to study the photo and prepare to shoot it. I actually studied some Zebra photos too and was surprised how non uniform their stripes were as compared to big cats.

The other finisher at the time was Tim McClaeb and he was first to tape and shoot it. I think he shot it a few times and it proved to be harder than the guys thought to shoot so it was given to me to shoot. I taped and shot it twice and didn't like those two attempts but the third time I liked what I saw and so did Tim and Geoff Jacobsen, who was finish dept. Manager at the time. Tim and I had taken over for Mark Wadsworth and "Stormin" Norman Boston as the company's finishers, They had both taken on jobs in the woodshop. The Nuge apparently liked the guitar enough to order a dozen CE's painted the same pattern and serialized to sell in his bow hunting catalog and Tim and I split the work on those. We got a great Christmas card from Ted that year that had a pic of him with bow in hand, and his foot on a man in red with an arrow sticking out of him, very camp and pretty damn funny. I left in late '89 but boy I loved working there, It was a small crew in the beginning (less than 20) but there were around 60 when I left and growing rapidly. Paul really gave a crap and that was most impressive. We were all like family quite literally.
 
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Hi, I'm new here and I was the guy who painted the original Whackmaster for Ted back in the late eighties.

Ted sent the shop a Polaroid photo of a factory custom Ford Bronco that had a zebra stripe paint job and had asked that we recreate the motif on his latest custom to come through the shop dusty belly and all..(can't remember if it was one of the new semi hollow bodies or not as they were a hot ticket right after we got the inverted pin router) Anyhow we were told to study the photo and prepare to shoot it. I actually studied some Zebra photos too and was surprised how non uniform their stripes were as compared to big cats.

The other finisher at the time was Tim McClaeb and he was first to tape and shoot it. I think he shot it a few times and it proved to be harder than the guys thought to shoot so it was given to me to shoot. I taped and shot it twice and didn't like those two attempts but the third time I liked what I saw and so did Tim and Geoff Jacobsen, who was finish dept. Manager at the time. Tim and I had taken over for Mark Wadsworth and "Stormin" Norman Boston as the company's finishers, They had both taken on jobs in the woodshop. The Nuge apparently liked the guitar enough to order a dozen EG's painted the same pattern and serialized to sell in his bow hunting catalog and Tim and I split the work on those. We got a great Christmas card from Ted that year that had a pic of him with bow in hand, and his foot on a man in red with an arrow sticking out of him, very camp and pretty damn funny. I left in late '89 but boy I loved working there, It was a small crew in the beginning (less than 20) but there were around 60 when I left and growing rapidly. Paul really gave a crap and that was most impressive. We were all like family quite literally.


Great story... always appreciate hearing some 'true history' !!
Thanks for posting!
 
Hi, I'm new here and I was the guy who painted the original Whackmaster for Ted back in the late eighties.

Ted sent the shop a Polaroid photo of a factory custom Ford Bronco that had a zebra stripe paint job and had asked that we recreate the motif on his latest custom to come through the shop dusty belly and all..(can't remember if it was one of the new semi hollow bodies or not as they were a hot ticket right after we got the inverted pin router) Anyhow we were told to study the photo and prepare to shoot it. I actually studied some Zebra photos too and was surprised how non uniform their stripes were as compared to big cats.

The other finisher at the time was Tim McClaeb and he was first to tape and shoot it. I think he shot it a few times and it proved to be harder than the guys thought to shoot so it was given to me to shoot. I taped and shot it twice and didn't like those two attempts but the third time I liked what I saw and so did Tim and Geoff Jacobsen, who was finish dept. Manager at the time. Tim and I had taken over for Mark Wadsworth and "Stormin" Norman Boston as the company's finishers, They had both taken on jobs in the woodshop. The Nuge apparently liked the guitar enough to order a dozen EG's painted the same pattern and serialized to sell in his bow hunting catalog and Tim and I split the work on those. We got a great Christmas card from Ted that year that had a pic of him with bow in hand, and his foot on a man in red with an arrow sticking out of him, very camp and pretty damn funny. I left in late '89 but boy I loved working there, It was a small crew in the beginning (less than 20) but there were around 60 when I left and growing rapidly. Paul really gave a crap and that was most impressive. We were all like family quite literally.

Thanks for posting,,,,, great story!!!
 
Thanks for posting,,,,, great story!!!
Y'all are quite welcome. Now keep in mind that Tim and I were equally competent finishers and we sprayed quite a few celeb gats...on that particular Nuge gat Tim simply timed out and had to move on with the days production quota. See the spray room back in those days was the bottleneck in production and as controlled an environment as it was there were many variables affecting finish and as such we had a larger quota to meet on a daily basis than other departments plus the industry was changing rapidly (HVLP was just coming into being) so we had to take each batch and all models through all stages of paint, do any custom jobs, test new equipment and spray samples of new products for R&D all in the average day. For a while we only had one booth and worked in staggered shifts until we got a second booth which meant meeting EPA and OSHA compliance all over again!

All of the guitars got the same quality treatment whether they were an EG or a Signature Series though. The costs were held down in components and construction but we still gave them the best finish possible!

The OP's guitar is fantastic and brings back fond memories so thanks to him!
 
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Great history, TSG68! I really enjoyed reading that.:adore:

So are you still a PRS player?
 
I wish! I sold my last PRS in '95 to help fund a move to NYC. It was an CE factory second sold at cost in an employee lunchtime sale to garner some petty cash for the office. It was fire engine red (classic red) with some finish sinking issues so I stripped it and refinished it in an eeriedess (metal) teal green. My employee guitar is out there somewhere as well, it is the first teal green, quilted "10" top, a semi-hollow body with a chrome Badass bridge. I had wanted a Bigsby trem but they just weren't reliable machines at all. Teal has always been my favorite color and I developed the color for my employee gat and Kevin Murphy did the stain on it. It became a factory color shortly after that. Last time I saw that guitar it was listed for $7,000 and I swore if I ever struck it rich I'd track it down and buy it back!
 
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Hi, I'm new here and I was the guy who painted the original Whackmaster for Ted back in the late eighties.

Ted sent the shop a Polaroid photo of a factory custom Ford Bronco that had a zebra stripe paint job and had asked that we recreate the motif on his latest custom to come through the shop dusty belly and all..(can't remember if it was one of the new semi hollow bodies or not as they were a hot ticket right after we got the inverted pin router) Anyhow we were told to study the photo and prepare to shoot it. I actually studied some Zebra photos too and was surprised how non uniform their stripes were as compared to big cats.

The other finisher at the time was Tim McClaeb and he was first to tape and shoot it. I think he shot it a few times and it proved to be harder than the guys thought to shoot so it was given to me to shoot. I taped and shot it twice and didn't like those two attempts but the third time I liked what I saw and so did Tim and Geoff Jacobsen, who was finish dept. Manager at the time. Tim and I had taken over for Mark Wadsworth and "Stormin" Norman Boston as the company's finishers, They had both taken on jobs in the woodshop. The Nuge apparently liked the guitar enough to order a dozen CE's painted the same pattern and serialized to sell in his bow hunting catalog and Tim and I split the work on those. We got a great Christmas card from Ted that year that had a pic of him with bow in hand, and his foot on a man in red with an arrow sticking out of him, very camp and pretty damn funny. I left in late '89 but boy I loved working there, It was a small crew in the beginning (less than 20) but there were around 60 when I left and growing rapidly. Paul really gave a crap and that was most impressive. We were all like family quite literally.

Thought you might like a few pics on this page....

http://prsguitars.com/forum/showthread.php?2297-Private-Stock-Friday&p=130428#post130428
 
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