Tony Rockett Replicas: Finesse vs Custom Models

Tony produces two ranges of replica guitar: 'Tony Rockett Custom' and 'Finesse'. Both result in custom built guitars, so what exactly is the difference? Hopefully this page will explain all!

The wood is carefully selected to duplicate the famous Quo guitars; American baseball bat ash for a Parfitt replica, and swamp ash for a Rossi replica. The body on a Francis copy will be made up of three pieces of swamp ash, cut and joined to exactly replicate the real thing.

Any copy of Rick's guitar will be fitted with high quality 'vintage' pickups, and a copy of Francis's will be fitted with Fender-Lace Sensor, Seymour Duncan 'Cool-Rails', or 'vintage' pickups dependent on the requested year configuration.

Finally, every Tony Rockett Custom guitar is delivered in a high quality 'vintage' tweed hard case.

Owning any hand crafted musical instrument is really something very special!

In May 2007 Tony introduced his new Finesse - or Standard - range of guitars.

These guitars are still assembled and finished by Tony, but he makes use of part-made bodies and part-made necks to keep the price down.

The body blanks are still routed out by Tony, and he also carefully selects the bodies to best match a Rick or Francis replica, but it is unlikely that the selected body will exactly match the original.

The necks can still be profiled to meet any specific request from a customer.

The Finesse range of replicas of the Quo guitars crucially retain the key elements of the original guitars. For example, Tony will not be make a copy of Francis Rossi's main green guitar fitted with a one piece maple neck. Tony will use a two piece maple capped neck.

However, the Finesse necks will not be exact copies of the originals. The positions markers ('dots') are not sized or spaced as per the 1950/60 originals. The rosewood finger board on Rick's will be a slab board rather than the curved veneer found on the guitars from that period. Finally, Tony uses necks for his Finesse range which facilitate truss rod adjustment via the headstock rather than the heel.

With each G&L bridge costing over £100 to import from the USA its just not possible to use these on the cheaper Finesse guitars. But Tony was keen to use a quality bridge, which also retained the look of a G&L and a Mighty-Mite fits the bill perfectly.

The actual finish, and attention to detail re the replication of the scratches and 'dings', is exactly the same on the Finesse copies as per the Customs.

We've seen many replicas of Francis's guitar presented with a single piece maple neck, which is completely wrong! These incorrect necks are easily spotted by the 'skunk' stripe which runs down the back of the neck.

The Finesse necks only have limited scope for profile adjustment. They have a flatter radius, standard dot spacing, and medium frets. Truss rod adjustment is via the headstock rather than the heel (*).

These are purchased from G&L and imported from the USA.

Tony uses a Mighty-Mite bridge for his Finesse copies (centre right).

Tony uses Fender-Lace Sensors and Seymour-Duncan 'Cool-Rails'. Replicas of the guitar in it's tune-o-matic configuration make use of high quality 'vintage' single coil pickups.

As outlined earlier, Finesse replicas are built using quality body blanks, which may be ash or alder.

Finesse rosewood necks carry a 'slab' rosewood fingerboard.

Says Tony: 'Everyone has an opinion on pickups. I've been in this business for over 20 years now, and have found nothing to beat the GFS models I use, and I've tried them all. The sound and reliability is second to none. I use them in my own guitars, which believe me get a serious hammering on the road with Bogus Quo! To me, the alnico pickups I use in my replicas give a truer sound, and the vintage model in particular accurately replicates the old guitars from the 50s and 60s.'

The same goes for the time spent replicating all the marks, scratches and 'dings' that you see on the famous Quo guitars.

The photographs (left and below right) show three Finesse and one Custom body just after relic process has been completed.

Both models are fitted with the same GFS electronic parts (pots etc).

Both Parfitt models carry domed top brass control knobs, and both Rossi models have the flat topped metal control knobs.

Both Parfitt models have the same fixed 'tailpiece' style bridge.