"I have been building full time for 54 years now, and I am not exaggerating when I say that D’Arcy is the most talented woodworker I have ever known. After we met, I immediately offered him a job, and for four years, he did all the final work on my archtops, mastering fingerboard trueing, fretwork, setup, etc..."
~ Roger Sadowsky
D'Arcy Blake builds by hand in New York City, and he made his name carving archtops. That's the part worth understanding before you look at his electrics. Carving and voicing a top by hand teaches you things about how a body actually behaves that you don't pick up any other way, and when a builder with that skill set turns toward electric guitars, the results tend to be different from what comes out of shops that only ever built solidbodies.
D'Arcy came up working with Roger Sadowsky, which is about as good a place to learn as there is, and he's built a serious reputation among archtop players and fellow builders remarkably fast.
What we love about his work is that he clearly knows the tradition cold and isn't remotely beholden to it. His curved neck joint and sculpted heel, developed on his archtops, give you real access to the top of the fingerboard in a way most guitars don't allow, and it's the kind of thing that's genuinely hard to execute rather than just hard to think of. The electrics are where a lot of his attention is going these days, and we're incredibly excited to have them here.
Trained at Sadowsky, building on his own terms
D'Arcy refined his craft working with Roger Sadowsky before setting up his own bench in New York. That background shows in the execution, but the designs are entirely his.
A neck joint that actually gives you the whole fretboard
One of his signatures is a curved neck joint with a sculpted heel that opens up real access to the upper register. It's a difficult thing to build because there's no template for it, every one gets shaped by hand, and the payoff is a comfortable heel and a top end you can genuinely use.
Every guitar is its own conversation
D'Arcy works closely with the people he builds for, and he's open about the fact that there's artistry and a fair amount of chance in the process. That's not a hedge, it's how hand-carved instruments actually work, and while they're remarkably consistent, it's why no two of his guitars are exactly the same.