MONARCH

Monarch is one of those projects that, once completed, makes you pause and ask yourself — “Is there even a point in continuing? Has the apex been reached? Is there a mountain taller than Everest?”

Of course, I’m (half) joking — there’s always room for growth, and greater instruments will be built. But it’ll take time, and serious effort. Because this project… was absolutely insane.

It all started with a once-in-a-lifetime find: a master-grade, sausage-style quilted maple top.

You couldn’t beg me for one like this — even if you were ready to pay any price. Specimens like this only come up a few times in a luthier’s lifetime. And this was one of those times.

The vision was immediate and clear:

Let’s make the fanciest ViK Duality in existence.

Naturally, that called for a Brazilian rosewood neck, a stunning black and white ebony fingerboard, and a lightweight, ultra-resonant ink-striped black limba body.

Then, something cool happened — the project evolved into a bit of a team effort.

Josh from Tactical Black Vault saw the stained top and reached out, offering a set of custom knobs to match the color palette. He also supplied the acrylic material used for the block inlays, purfling, and pickup toppers.

And just to add insult to extravagance…

I went with black-gold hardware, a Sophia 2:92 Pro tremolo, and even wound a custom set of VIKUPS pickups specifically for this build.

It doesn’t get much fancier than that — and yes, there are pictures to prove it.