Ken Hoover, president and founder of Zion Guitars helped design the Ty Tabor Signature Model and was kind enough to do an interview with me through e-mail.

Below are the questions I asked Ken along with his response.

QUESTION #1:

How did Zion Guitars come into relationship with Ty Tabor to develop his signature model?

I was a fan of Kings X long before I knew Ty. About 10 years ago I saw a tape of Kings X on Kerry Livgrens (ED NOTE: Kerry is a former guitarist with band Kansas) kitchen counter that he was listening to, so I knew I had to check these guys out. About 5 years ago I went out to a club nearby to see the band and to take a guitar that I thought Ty might be interested in. It was too pretty and too noisy through Ty's rig. The next day I took the original pickup out and put the Joe Barden in. Ty exclaimed, "You guys have done in one weekend what 3 major companies could not do in several years of trying." With a color change the Signature Model was born!

There are a lot things that make that guitar unique. For starters the Joe Barden
Deluxe Pickups are mounted into the body as opposed to being hung on the pickguard. This gives them a more resonant coupling to the body. The neck is as thin as we make and has a rosewood fingerboard which is Ty's preference. There are also black markings on the back of the neck so you know exactly where you are on a dim lit stage. The bridge is similiar feeling to the Elite bridge he was used to.

We borrowed the switching idea from an Elite too (push-button on-off switches for each pickup). In that Ty's goes from that thunderous distortion to that sweet clean rhythm sound without the aid of channel switching (he simply turns the volume knob down). The taper of that pot was vitally important. We were fortunate to find the right taper to do the job with his particular amp, pickups and the demand.

An unknown fact is that Ty compared a solid basswood body to one with a 1/4" maple cap and prefered the maple cap tone. So all the Tabors are done with a maple cap even though you can't see it! I think that covers all the details.
 
QUESTION #2:

How many protoypes did it take to get to the final model?

(see above - 2)
 
QUESTION #3:

How did you use Ty's Elite Stratocaster as a benchmark to create the Ty model?

(see above - bridge, switches, feel & sound)
 
QUESTION #4:

In response to the neck size, exactly how big is it in thickness? (Since you said its the thinnest neck you make. Is there a special truss-rod used to hold it all together?)

At the first fret its .775" from the back of the neck to the face of the fingerboard.
At the twelth fret its .835". The fretwire adds .050" to the overall dimension.
(These dimensions are meaningless to most guitar players who seem to go strictly by a sense of feel rather than a measurement)

No, we use the same truss-rod on everything.
 
QUESTION #5:

What type of volume pot do you use? (250K, 500K, other?)

500K this is the amount of resistance - what makes it special is another
characteristic called slope or taper. This can vary among various manufacturers. We do not want to publish the name of the particular manufacturer we use.

QUESTION #6:

How many Ty guitars does Zion produce? Are they produced per year, month, or by demand?
 
On average we make about one  a month, but they are going to more of
an on demand production.

QUESTION #7:
 
Do you plan on doing any full-page ads promoting the Ty guitar in guitar magazines?

Not at this time.

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