The Shape Begins to Emerge

For the first time in over four decades, a Bond guitar is being drawn again.

Over the past few weeks we’ve been quietly moving from ideas, reference images and legacy parts into something more tangible. This week, that process took a significant step forward: the first proper CAD design work for the new Bond guitar is now underway.

The design work isn’t a direct copy of the original production Electraglide. Instead, it’s being modelled from Andrew Bond’s early prototype designs — the guitars that came before the final production model and explored the core ideas, shapes and mechanical thinking that defined Bond in the first place.

Those early prototypes were experimental, hand-built, and unapologetically unconventional.

They’re where the real DNA of the instrument lives. The current work takes those forms as its foundation, refining and developing them with modern tools while staying faithful to the original intent.

Using reference imagery and physical components, the outline of the body and headstock has now been mapped, bridge placement established, and overall proportions locked in. Seeing these shapes take form on screen for the first time is one of those moments where a project stops being conceptual and starts becoming real.

Importantly, this hasn’t been rushed.

As the work progressed, small discrepancies between historical measurements and modern “textbook” specifications came to light — exactly the sort of thing you expect when working from hand-built prototype instruments rather than CAD-era designs. Rather than forcing the geometry to conform to paper numbers, the decision was taken to treat the original prototype geometry as the master reference.

That means working from physical parts, measuring what actually exists and plays correctly, and allowing the design to follow function rather than theory. It’s a slower process, but it’s the right one.

This guitar isn’t about recreating the past note-for-note. It’s about honouring Andrew Bond’s early designs, preserving their mechanical honesty and spirit, and then carrying that thinking forward with modern craftsmanship.

There’s still a long way to go, but this feels like a meaningful milestone. The shape has resurfaced — not as a replica, but as a continuation — and the work is now firmly in motion.

More soon.