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The Icefly is a one-off guitar which is some kind of hybride of an Ibanez Iceman and a Parker Fly, hence: Icefly. Originally I wanted to build this guitar myself but because of lack of time and experience (and patience and craftmanship!!) I decided to let the master guitar builder Shamray from Moscow built it for me. Mr. Sushkov himself builded this beast with serialnumber CS-0056:

Specifications

The body is made of white Korina wood (Terminalia superba), or white Limba, which is known for its bright sound and low density.

There are treble and  volume skull knobs and three micro switches situated in the cavity. The 3-way switch situated in the upper horn is sunken. The pickups are custom wound by Chernyshev, the pickup expert of Shamray Guitars. The neck pickup is  a 4 conductor Alnico 5 bar pickup (similar to a Seymour Duncan Jazz), the bridge pickup is a 4 conductor Alnico 2 bar pickup (similar to a Seymour Duncan Custom Custom). The electronics are 100% shielded. The pickups are covered with a wooden pickup cove. The 2 humbuckers provide 24 combinations.

The strings run via a Gotoh tune-o-matic bridge through the body in a V shape. The custom designed chrome flame cover has been cut by hand out of a 3 mm Copper plate, after which the plate was chromed. The paintjob is a mixture of a fireburst and a bulleye paintjob, I call it a fireburst bullseye finish.

A Mahogany Warmoth neck with a Brazilian Rosewood fretboard with 6105 .096" X.047 frets is boulted to the body, the serialnumber of the neck is WN-159. The artist known as Sushkov of Shamray created an Icefly inlay (Turntablez font) at the 12th fret: 

The sides and back of the guitar is painted cherry. The upperhorn and pots cavity is closed with a wooden cover.  Machineheads: Gotoh 3+3 sealed lubricated vintage style. The nut is tuned into the laws of Physics with an Earvana compensating nut, this provides perfect intonation, especially with open cords, works like a charm I might add. The peghead is binded in the same fashion as the body is binded. The wooden thruss rod cover is painted to match the peghead.

 Impression

I really like this guitar, the sound is versatile. There are 24 pickup combinations, most of the time I use the humbucker bridge postion, sometimes the humbucker neck positon for muddy Kyuss types of sound, the neck single coil is perfect for warm bluesy notes. The guitar is tuned a half step down from drop D.  I am not used to the tune-o-matic bridge, this makes fast palm muting quite difficult for me. This will improve I'm sure. A small thing is the backside of the upper horn, because it is not carved it sometimes sticks into the ribbs while playing sitting down, this is not a real problem. The guitar turned out to be better than I have imagined, Hooray to Shamray!

Download an MP3 of the pickup settings.

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