Bones Miura

The Guyton 'Bones' Miura

I have always been a fan of Discharge’s music, and particularly, Bones’ guitar work. I remember to this day, the shock that grabbed me in early 1982 when I first heard the power of the opening chord on the album’s first track ‘Hear nothing, See nothing, Say nothing’. It quite simply, blew away my tiny 15 year old mind!
On the 12th June 2024, I contacted the band Discharge through their Instagram page to ask whether guitarist, Tony ‘Bones’ Roberts would be interested in collaborating with me and designing a signature Guyton guitar. Luckily, he was completely up for it, and said yes immediately!
Bones has been using Gibson’s SG Standard model for a number of years and I had always wanted to build a ‘Hot-rodded’ version of the now legendary SG Junior. I put the idea to Bones, and he loved it! His first ‘proper’ guitar was an SG Junior, so it’s almost like he had come full circle.
My idea for this re-imagining of the guitar was to keep it very simple and workmanlike, but really up the standard when it came to parts and build quality. The original was built as an affordable budget guitar, but I wanted nothing of the sort for this. Everything on this guitar was to be thoroughly thought out and all the parts were to be of the highest quality.
In August 2024, I visited Bones to discuss the guitar and the various options open to him as well to take detailed measurements of his favourite guitars/pickups.
Replacing the machine heads with Schaller’s beautiful ‘Grand Tune’ open geared machine heads, and the original cast wrap-over bridge with ABM’s modern nickel plated wrap-over bridge machined from solid brass.
The electronics were simplified even more. All it has now is a single volume control, but this guitar features a high quality Alpha potentiometer. This is then fitted with a high quality machined, stainless steel knob from Anomaly guitar hardware. The output jack socket is a Pure-Tone twin contact item.
During the research for pickups, I discovered a company in Stowmarket called ‘Old Bones pickups’. Obviously with a name like that I had to involve them. The brief was a powerful but slim humbucking pickup that would fit comfortably underneath a ‘Dog-ear’ P90 cover. I also wanted the pole pieces to be twin blades with a 12” radius that would protrude through two machined slots in the cover. Sean at Old Bones pickups was up for the job, and development started.
The starting point was their Carouser pickup, but it was slightly under-wound and fitted with an Alnico 8 magnet. The blades were cut, shaped, polished and plated by myself, but all under the watchful eye of Sean.
The ‘Bones’ skull graphic was designed by my good friend Steve Bjorck. This takes up nearly 50% of the headstock and is cut from a ‘faux’ Ivory material. The fingerboard inlays are cut and inlaid from the same material. The headstock and Rosewood fingerboard are then bound with Tortoiseshell binding.