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The history of the Bond Guitars project and its place in the Ukrainian guitar ecosystem, insider details of the instrument-making process, a deep dive into the nuances and intricacies of guitar building. All of this and more can be found in the first conversation between the founder and head luthier of the Ukrainian guitar brand Bond Guitars, Bohdan Bondarenko, and the blogger Dmytro Vilyaykin from the YouTube channel "Guitar Stories". Let's start with the story of our company – from the inception of the idea of the first guitar and our brand name to the challenges of guitar production during the war.

Dmytro: Welcome! I understand you're the founder of Bond Guitars because it's the first four letters of your last name?
Bohdan: Hello! Exactly.


Photo: Dmytro Vilyaykin (left) and Bohdan Bondarenko
Bond Guitars – how long have you been around?
It all started back in 2009. That's when I became very passionate about guitars and already played this instrument for a few years. I had a Yamaha Pacifica back then, quite an unconventional version of it – a telecaster with two humbuckers, the 120SJ model in black. It was my first electric guitar. After that, I got an Edwards E-FR 130 GT – an aggressive, "metal" axe with a Floyd Rose tremolo. Over time, I found myself wanting to try something more personalized. I realized this when I got into the music of the English band MUSE. If you know Matthew Bellamy, the frontman of the group, he uses custom guitars by Manson with various built-in effects, a Kaoss pad, and so on. I wanted a guitar of that type for myself, so I reached out to a local luthier here in Kyiv. Unfortunately, he hasn't done anything for me. Even though I personally sketched the design of the instrument for him, I never received the guitar. I got scammed!

After that experience, I decided to try making that guitar myself. So, back in 2009, I started down this samurai path and made my first guitar. I began actively studying the subject, reading and exploring guitar building literature. Eventually, I was taught luthiery by local masters. All of this evolved into our brand, Bond Guitars, which we announced in 2019. A significant milestone for me was obtaining the trademark in Ukraine. That's when my hobby turned into the full-scale business.

We have a question from the audience: "Making guitars is tough. How did you make the first one?"
The process of creating my first guitar has its own story. I made it entirely on my own. The main problem was finding the wood for the body. In those years, finding an exotic wood blank in Ukraine was very difficult, so I had to order one from the United States. I received a solid piece of Honduran mahogany harvested from a very large tree, judging by the line-up of the growth rings. When I placed the order, I specified that it should be the same thickness as a Gibson SG, about 38 mm. Then I started processing it myself, doing routing and painting. A pretty good guitar came out as a result, we have more information about it on our Instagram page.

When the war in Ukraine started, were you in Kyiv the whole time since the February 24th?
During the full-scale invasion, it was very challenging. We witnessed the combat actions firsthand. The work of our pilots, the famous "Ghosts of Kyiv" was especially memorable. We had to relocate to the west of the country for a few months. But later, we returned. By the way, this gave me the opportunity to gain experience in remote guitar repairs. Customers reached out and I provided step-by-step instructions on what to do. They got the opportunity to fix their instruments on their own.

Photo: first guitar by Bond Guitars
It seems that when I first saw photos of your instruments, there were standard "Strats" and "Teles". Is it true, or have you always created a boutique-style exclusive?
No. If the photos contained "Strats" and other classics, I'm almost sure that it was another Ukrainian manufacturer called Woodstock. This brand produces replicas, mostly '60s Fender-style guitars, so it's quite a classic design. We're the opposite. That’s because I started making guitars for myself, wanting something very unconventional. From the very beginning of Bond Guitars, all our models are completely authentic. From the contours to the specifications, everything is unique. We don't copy designs from well-known brands.

Is Woodstock a competitor or a friend?
I know the founder of Woodstock, Serhiy Semenov. When we started, we had ideas for collab projects. But our paths diverged as their focus is more on replicas, while we aim to create our own exclusive designs and concepts. Currently, we even want to start making headless instruments, guitars in the cyberpunk style. That’s something very niche.

Regarding the fact that Jackson Guitars no longer put the "Made in USA" label on their regular guitars, but only on their Custom Shop instruments, is it true that your guitars are fully "Made in Ukraine"?
It's easier to list the parts of the instruments that we don't make ourselves here in Kyiv. Each of our designs start from a clean sheet, there's no copying involved. The design is entirely unique and Ukrainian. The same goes for the woods and painting. The only elements we don't make are those we physically can't produce. These include tuners, bridges, potentiometers, and in most cases the pickups.

I've had discussions about whether wood affects the sound. I've heard various positions on this matter. Some people even claimed that wood hardly affects at all. What's your perspective on what affects the guitar's sound?
Bohdan: Let me ask you a counter-question. Let's say we have a fixed bridge with saddles that hold the strings. If we replace the material of these six saddles in the first case – with aluminum, and in the second case – with steel. Would this change the sound?
Dmytro: Aluminum and steel, I think, wouldn't influence the sound significantly. But we might notice a difference with composite saddles from GraphTech.
Bohdan: We'll definitely notice that. Since I hold a PhD degree, I try to use a scientific approach in all aspects of life, including guitar building. We conducted an experiment: we took one Bond NP guitar and, after changing different saddles (aluminum, zinc, and steel), performed sound recordings. The recorded samples did indeed differ. Overall, in an electric guitar, a lot affects the sound. The question is how substantial and noticeable this influence is. We'll hear some things immediately, while others we might only see on a spectrum analyzer. Wood has a lesser impact than pickups or hardware, but it does have a significant effect.


Photo: Bond Star Deluxe in Black Battleworn
Let's talk about one of your designs – this guitar, the Bond Star Deluxe. I really liked it. When I saw it, I thought, "Wow!"
The most interesting thing is the story behind its creation. For the fourth year we've been trying to participate in the European guitar manufacturers' and players' congress in Germany – the Guitar Summit. I've been in constant contact with their organization team. They invited us this year, even mentioned that due to the war, they would be able to help us at their best. But unfortunately, we didn't receive permission to attend from the local government. We made this black Bond Star Deluxe specifically for that event. Notice the unique Black Battleworn finish. It's not aged, but looks as if it was found in the midst of a medieval carnage. The guitar's surface is scratched with blades and knives. It's considered a piece of art for us.

Let's discuss this guitar. It's in a classic style, but with innovations. An interesting shape and the wood is visible through the finish. What wood did you use?
Surprisingly, it's an alder, but not entirely common. In 2009, at the very beginning of my journey in guitar making, there was an opportunity to harvest the wood. You know that for top-tier guitars, the "air-dried wood" is used, which means it has never been in a kiln or industrial dryer. I had some alder left from those times, and we used it specifically for this art build. So, to answer your question, it's alder that's been air-dried by hand.

What type of alder is it? Is it Ukrainian?
Exactly, it is Ukrainian alder. I want to talk about this a bit, as there was an opportunity to compare American and Ukrainian alder with the same body shape. In terms of characteristics and feel, they are slightly different woods, and the sound will differ as well. The neck of this guitar is made from roasted maple. This technology has become popular relatively recently. I ordered this maple from the US because this technology isn't highly developed here in Ukraine yet. Here's how it works: they take a piece of maple, place it in a vacuum chamber, and heat it to about 400 degrees Celsius. With this heating, the remnants of maple fluids in the wood polymerize. The result is a modified wood. I was initially skeptical about all this. But after we tried making a few necks from this wood, I concluded that this technique really works.

Tell us a bit about Bond finish and coatings.
This is one of our unique features. When I played a lot of gigs with my band, all my guitars were gloss-finished. Often, I didn't have enough time to wipe them down after soundchecks at concerts. It all looked quite messy. that’s why I decided to explore the issue of guitar coatings: whether they affect the sound, what types there are, and so on. The idea emerged to create a finish that would appear satin, slightly matte, and wouldn't show fingerprints. And we succeeded. The Bond Finish doesn't show fingerprints, unlike regular matte or glossy coatings. We achieved this while preserving its harmless impact on tonal characteristics and deep color, as we used nitro paint coated with a modern protective layer.

Regarding color, do you think the guitar's color affects its price? Is that a myth?
It's more of a myth. Based on what I know, here are two examples. If you have an acoustic guitar covered in black paint, its top won't perform as well due to the substantial thickness of the paint layer compared to a transparent coating. There's also the case of the Les Paul Studio from the early 2000s. There are rumors with some evidence that wood of lower quality was painted in non-transparent colors, while higher-quality wood was used for Wine Red models because the wood's texture is visible in those. That's all I've heard.

Tell us about your Bond Guitars anchorless system.
This is quite a spy technology of ours! The first anchorless system, or rather a reinforcement system without a non-adjustable truss rod, was developed back in the 50s in American Harmony guitars. Guitar strings under standard tuning apply almost 50 kilograms of tension on the neck. In other words, they constantly pull, and the neck must have a certain response to this tension. In most cases, this response is achieved through a compression truss rod inside the neck. However, we had a different idea. To achieve the best guitar tone, we decided to investigate how the guitar works, especially how string vibration is distributed from the perspective of acoustics and physics. Among guitar makers, there's a statement that the neck should be rigid and stable for the energy to stay in the strings. The vibration of strings is being detected by the pickup, which sends the signal to the amplifier. Considering this, we had the idea to create a neck so powerful that the strings couldn't excessively bend it. We made a test series with our original non-adjustable truss rods. It turned out they were just too good. It might sound a bit strange, but they were absolutely great in terms of technical characteristics and tonal results, so we decided to keep this feature exclusively for our Custom Shop.

The last guitar made with this technology was manufactured a few years ago. Clients typically choose more classical solutions. Although this system provides maximum sound and stability, it might raise questions with certain string gauges combined with non-standard tunings. In reality, a great compromise exists – the Japanese U-Channel truss rod system. This is a standard compression rod located in an alloy profile. This simultaneously gives great neck reinforcement and the ability to adjust the truss rod as usual.

I've also heard the opinion that sound in an electric guitar isn't just about the sound of the strings near the pickup but throughout the length of the body. What's your view on this matter?
Definitely, that's true. It's a very interesting topic, I'll try to explain. There are YouTube videos where people experiment. They put guitar strings over a rock, make guitar bodies from stone, etc. This allows us to understand how the string system sounds without the influence of wood, hardware, bridge. There is a good analogy with sound engineering – we have an active and passive equalization. Many people believe that wood actively influences the sound. But in reality, the wood can only "take off" certain frequencies, which is a form of passive equalization. For instance, if you have a guitar made of mahogany, it will absorb high frequencies from the sound. But if the string system is put over a stone or a metal beam, its tone retains almost the full sound spectrum, and it all depends on the pickup. In a real guitar, the core of the tone is set by wood, hardware, bridge construction, and from there, it's the electronics. However, the significance of the electronics' impact on the overall tone is quite big.

Let's talk a bit about the bass. This bass you have there, the Bond Raccoon. Are you reimagining the P-bass?
Exactly. When I performed with the band as a bassist onstage, I always enjoyed listening to bass in an open-air sound format. This allowed me to hear how a bass works across all frequencies. From a sound engineer's perspective, an electric guitar is more of a Lo-Fi instrument – it sounds from the lower midrange to the upper midrange. But a bass guitar, in essence, is a Hi-Fi instrument because it sounds from the subs to the high frequencies. Classical bass models all perform differently in mixes. For example, the P-bass has lows, mids, and almost no highs. Especially compared to the Jazz bass, which has scooped mids, a plenty of high frequencies, subs, the extreme lows. Regarding Bond Guitars' basses – we take interesting ideas from guitar classics and try to modernize and reinterpret them. The Bond Raccoon is a reimagining of the P-bass, aimed to fix the main issues of the classic version. It has significantly more subs, lows, and open highs, which allows you to play slap. But the core of the tone is still the same Precision-style. This all is possible due to the selected wood and the proper electronics. Also, it's all in passive, meaning it doesn't require a battery onboard.

That's some guitar and bass magic for you. We thank Dmytro and Bohdan for the engaging conversation. Consider following “Guitar Stories” YouTube channel, our Facebook and Instagram pages to stay updated on the latest events and announcements.

Bond Guitars – Bond to Music.


Photo: Bond Raccoon Deluxe in unique Matt Black finish