Vigier Excalibur SupraA Rock Art £3,195

It’s often said, if we guitar players are so creative then why do we all play Sunburst Strats? Well, Patrice Vigier is one of the latest makers to apply a little art to his designs. The Rock Art concept started “two or three years ago”, he says. “I’ve probably done around 50, but I really haven’t kept count.” Our Excalibur SupraA is a fine example of the multicoloured swirling designs that we’ve seen so far. “What I like about the process is that it’s not predictable,” he says. “Even if you take the same colours, it’s never the same from one guitar to another. I honestly don’t remember what inspired me, probably I saw one and decided I liked it. I was looking at the different processes there are to create a finish.”

In simple terms, the colours are floated on a water bath. “Yes, you put your paint on top of the water and then dip the guitar in it. But you know, the last thing the wood of a guitar likes is water so it’s very important to mask off any bare wood so no water gets in. The worst you can do is to choose the wrong colours – that’s the only risk you take.”

With or without the art work – which, at full retail, adds £924 to the base price in the case of an Excalibur SupraA – you can’t help but be impressed with the detailed craft. The Excalibur takes a Fender bolt-on and puts it through a contemporary mangle, from the wider cutaways that provide effortless access, to the top of the 24-fret fingerboard, to hidden details such as the impressively tidy and properly shielded control cavity – even the strap buttons that bolt into threaded metal body inserts.

But this modernism never forgets about the feel, which is superb. It’s light in weight (3.4kg), has a beautiful C-meets-D neck shape that disappears in your hand, and one of the finest fret jobs and setups you’ll get to play.

Sonically, too, it covers a lot of ground. The solo humbuckers combine girth, power and clarity for your rockier moments, while the three central single-coil mixes give considerable Fender-like contrast. The centre pickup is screwed down, almost flush with the pearl scratchplate – so it feels like you’re picking on a twin-humbucking guitar.

Guitarist would like to thank World Guitars (worldguitars.co.uk) for the loan of this guitar

The Schaller tuners have oversized, knurled rear locks. The two pins by the low A-string tuner are the bases of the string tension guides for the top two strings 2

The vibrato here is nonlocking and pivots on two ball-bearing loaded posts; the saddles lock in place once intonated, and the break point under each string is a steel ‘roller’ that doesn’t rotate. The pickups are by Amber and the fiveway selector offers each humbucker, then the inner three selections of bridge (slug coil) and middle single coil, bridge (screw coil) and neck (slug coil) and, thirdly, neck (slug coil) with middle single coil 1

While its attachment is standard, the neck itself is the truss-rodfree 10/90 design with central graphite reinforcement; it’s been used for over 30 years 3

4 The side-mounted Neutrik locking jack socket – depress the red lever to remove your lead

5 The zero fret is made of six pieces of stainless steel fretwire that are slightly taller than the rest of the frets. If you notice any wear, you just replace the offending section. The ‘caterpillar’ behind the string guide reduces any dead-string resonance that may cause issues at high gain volume levels