September 2021 saw the long-awaited birth of the Fool IV. This is the fourth Eric Clapton Fool replica guitar that we have built. This is the first one, the second one we built for my brother, and the third we built for a gentleman in Italy. I promised my Italian customer that he would get the finest Fool we had ever built and he did.
But then we built the Fool IV.
Birth of a Legend
The Fool IV began life at the same time as Antonello’s fool. We assembled two raw SGs and picked the better one to finish for Antonello.
The Fool IV sat unfinished for months. Rocco and I tried some new finishing techniques. Then we stripped them off and tried some more. Suddenly, everything clicked and the Fool IV abruptly emerged, a smooth, glossy one-of-a-kind instrument.
Is the Fool IV perfect?
Hell, no! It has a variety of strange bumps and blemishes. Colors get strange in places. But it looks cooler than cool and sounds hotter than hot! When you’re up on stage in front of an arena crowd, everyone will think you’re playing Clapton’s original! In fact, the Fool IV is better than Clapton’s classic Cream axe because it has a durable finish that will last a lifetime. Clapton’s guitar fell to ruin after less than a decade!
A Player’s Dream
The Fool IV has a mahogany body and neck. The neck is chunky but fast. The frets are low but still have a lot of life left. The Fool IV is a player’s dream, fully capable of wide, wild bends and lightning-fast runs. This is truly the finest Fool we’ve ever built and we’ve built some pretty good ones!
