Status Quo Replica Guitars

In addition to his main green guitar, Francis makes use of two other 'greenies' on a regular basis. Both of these guitars are distinguished by their dark rosewood finger boards.

The guitar featured here is the one Francis uses during the song 'Down Down', with the other guitar appearing when the band play 'Whatever You Want'.

(Note that these guitars had a role reversal some years ago just to confuse matters!)

Three things quickly determine which guitar is which:

- The DD guitar has a 'hole', the WYW one doesn't!

- The DD guitar has the black CBS decal

- The DD guitar has a darker finish around the sides

As per his main green guitar, there have been a number of configurations of this guitar over the years:

Close-up inspection of the guitar quite clearly shows that at some point it was fitted with a Bigsby 'trem' unit. The guitar shows all the marks consistent with a standard 'ash-tray' type bridge, so its doubtful that the Bigsby unit was factory fitted.

The Bigsby was then removed and replaced by a tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece very early on. The tailpiece was custom made (we don't know if specially for Francis) and is very distinctive on photographs throughout the 70s and 80s.

Note that Francis retained and cut-off the Bigsby bridge pickup mount plate, and this can still be seen on the guitar today.

The original saddles on the bridge were all replaced by nylon parts, as was the case on all three of Francis's guitars.

Then in 1991 the original pick-ups were replaced by Fender Lace Sensors, which was a modification he made to all three of his main guitars.

Finally, the transformation was complete when the G&L Saddle Lock bridge was added in 1995.

The DD guitar body is a three-piece Ash body, and the grain pattern clearly shows through the lime-green finish.

Just like Francis's main guitar, there is no finish on the back, and its been left just as he sanded it down. Again, like his main guitar, the 'sides' are black (possibly very dark green), although this is clearly a non-original finish.

Click on this link for some great photographs of the 'Down Down' guitar.

One of the guitars used by the band supports an original neck, which Tony has restored. The other is completely hand made by Tony, and is shown in the pictures below.

Once again the attention to detail is amazing, and the guitar shown has a faithfully reproduced neck complete with curved finger board and perfectly sized and spaced position dots.

Tony has even used a pointed FS type switch tip rather than the usual 'top-hat' variety.