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Builder Profile Fury Guitars Canada's original electric guitar builder since 1962 Vintage Guitar Magazine (January 2000) Written by Stan Garchinski 1962 is a landmark year in the history of guitar manufacturing in Canada. It was then, that Glenn McDougall established the Fury Guitar Company, launching an era of innovative design that has spanned more than three decades. Located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, the western province bordering North Dakota and Montana to the south, the seemingly endless miles of open wheatfields and ranchlands hardly seem an appropriate venue for manufacturing sophisticated electric guitars. But this is where the story begins. When Fury opened its first small factory in 1962, Canada didn't have an active guitar industry. A few small custom acoustic makers were scattered across the country, but electric builders were non existent. Today, the state of the Canadian guitar industry is very active with several acoustic and electric builders earning respect worldwide. While doing the background research for this article, I was intrigued by the chain of events that set the stage for the birth of Fury instruments. The year 1956, can indirectly be claimed the real beginning. It was during that early era of rock-n -roll, that Glenn grew increasingly frustrated with several design deficiencies on his pricey, famous name guitar. His main complaint was the excessive flex and sponginess of adjustable truss-rod reinforced necks. Not only were they spongy, they were highly prone to being unstable and overly sensitive to the climate variables experienced on the road. Convinced that an adjustable truss-rod could be designed that would minimize or eliminate both problems, Glenn started designing, testing and refining prototypes of his high mass linear system, which would later become a vital part of Fury instrument necks. At that time, Glenn had no thoughts about manufacturing guitars. His attention was focused on a professional music career, so the perfected prototype truss-rod was shelved. Destiny however, was at work shaping events that would force an unwelcome change to his career plans, and his life, when a near fatal car crash in 1958 left him with injuries that seriously impaired his playing skills. Now, with his music career out of the picture, he opted to use one of his other natural born abilities to start a new career in sign writing and commercial art. The new line of work was specialized and fairly fulfilling, but failed to fit into the personality of a confirmed rock-n-roller. The knowledge and skills gained in the new profession would prove to be invaluable later on, but by 1961, Glenn was feeling an urgent need to return to the world of guitars. Although he wasn't returning as a player, he felt totally comfortable with his connection to the instrument in the role of designer and manufacturer. By late 1961, the preliminary design of the "Fireball" guitar was in progress. The decision had been made to lay it all on the line to start up a small factory. Intensive experimentation, testing and refining the "Fireball" lasted the better part of 1962. Satisfied with his last prototype, the time had come to build precision patterns, templates and dies to manufacturer the various parts. A special machine was built to wind pickup coils. Machinery to do woodwork, metal and plastics was purchased to start production. At the time, Glenn, and his wife Janet, were raising the first three of their four small children. Since they had no outside start-up capital, their only chance to create factory space was to buy a house for the family and convert the basement into the production facility. They found an affordable house with a very dry basement that could be easily climate controlled, and the first Fury factory was ready to go. The first production run of eight "Fireball" model guitars got under way in early 1963. Glenn kept his day job at the sign company to pay the bills while the fledging company took root. Hectic as it was, he worked his day job and burned the candle at both ends to run Fury at nights and on weekends. It was not unusual for Glenn to sleep every other night. In 1966, after the death of his father, he quit the day job at the sign shop and went full time with the manufacturing. These first fireball tremolo models sold for $605 with a case. Looking back to that era, Glenn recounts that new product development was in high gear. Many of Fury's best design features evolved between 1963 and 1967. Several have stood the test of time and can be found on present day models. The next major design and development wave came between 1979 and 1988. This period saw the introduction of Fury's "ZP" pickup, balanced high-mass bridge, high-mass tremolo, just to mention a few of the features that took Fury instruments to their present state of the art. In 1977, Fury moved operation into a new building. This move made it necessary to upgrade production systems to stay in pace with larger numbers of instruments. Several special machines were developed and built to handle the large flow of special parts. Streamlined precision jigs, clamping systems, and multiple profiling dies were built to mass produce the dozens of varied part types to exacting tolerances. Several years ago, a high speed automatic neck carving machine was designed and built to repeatedly duplicate necks with a comfortable hand carved feel. This machine carves two necks at a time, and requires only seven minutes for guitar necks and ten minutes for bass and baritone necks. The maze of systems, machines and devises that have been built to manufacture Fury guitars is much too numerous to cover in this article. The important result is that between seven and nine instruments are built in the same time it took to build one in 1963. The bonus is that repeatable quality has been easier to maintain with the streamlined machinery. Like many people who create their own companies, Glenn lacked the advantage of business training. He had no experience in marketing, and no experience negotiating with bankers. These factors, combined with the fact that the new guitar was still unknown made the initial start-up difficult. The first ten years were an uphill battle. Finding enough dealers who were acceptance to the line and willing to stock it was an ongoing problem. Glenn realized that direct selling from the factory would have a negative effect on attracting dealers. But, the company was between a rock and a hard spot. Without enough retailers stocking the line, sales volume and revenue would be too low to survive. Direct selling was the only alternative. Although the factory held selling prices competitive with dealer retail, direct selling was a ghost that continually came back to haunt them in negotiations with prospective dealers. Over 7000 guitars have been built since 1962, with the majority been purchased directly from the factory Searching out the right dealers for the line, and a reputable national distributor to service the dealers, took time and effort. The marketing system finally came together in 1997 with the establishment of an independent sales and marketing company. It was this company, Fury Guitar Sales that showcased the guitar line to dealers at its first US trade show (NAMM 1998) in 36 years of business. New product design during the 1980's shaped the Fury model selection to a level where it can now optimize the success of the new marking company. The 80's was a finishing off period of prime models and design features that has positioned the line in a highly competitive world market. This era finalized development of the baritone guitar, the BBM model guitar and reissue of the Fireball model, with upgraded components. It was also the one and only era that Fury designed and manufactured several radically styled models to fit the mood of the time. Models such as the stylistic Starship guitar and Space bass. The Excalibur guitar, and the classic Meridian guitar. The limited edition lineup was manufactured for less than two years, and most have been scooped up by collectors. Fury's most successful models based on long term sales have been their LS4 bass (1967-1987), the 20th Century Artist Hollowbody (1968-1985), The F12 Twelve string (1966-1990) and the BBM 3 pickup guitar released in 1986 and is currently being produced. The Fireball baritone guitar (1982-current), the Fireball guitar, reissued in 1989 and their Tornado bass, released at NAMM in 1998 are showing definite indications of being strong long range sellers. When I was locating vintage Fury guitars to photograph for this feature, I gained new insight into the amount of innovation and design that this company has introduced to the industry in their 37 years of manufacturing. During my search for vintage Fury guitars, I hit the jackpot by finding the one and only 1962 pre-production prototype "Fireball" guitar. It was totally original and intact. The headstock was different than the production models, making it even more collectable. To my delight, the aging gentleman that owned it agreed to sell it to me. Glenn informed me that it was the fourth guitar he made, and the first guitar to bear the Fury script logo. Most of the vintage Fury guitars collected for the photo shoot were constructed of Honduras Mahogany with maple necks. Mahogany was used for bodies from 1963 to 1984. At that time, the body thickness was thinned from 1 3/4" to 1 1/2" and Eastern Hard maple became the standard body wood. The hard Maple was replaced by lighter weight soft Maple in 1988. Necks have always been constructed of select Eastern Hard Maple. For about 20 years, fingerboards were machined from Brazilian Rosewood. It eventually became so scare and expensive that it was replaced with Pau Ferro, which proved superior to the Rosewood. Maple fingerboards made their first appearance on Fury necks in the early 70's. Although it is more delicate than some of the new finishing materials, Fury still uses a special blend of nitrocellulose and acrylic lacquer for neck and body finishing. They have stayed with this traditional finish because it has superior acoustic freedom and is pleasing to the eye and to the touch. Players continually comment on it. Fury pickups have always been at the forefront of their instrument design. The company has never installed other makes of pickups in their guitars or basses. Pickup research and design has been an especially busy area throughout their history, and some amazing sounds and levels of output power have found their way into Fury instrument. Their first pickup, designated SS6000, was a rich, bright sounding single coil with the punch of a humbucker. It had an Alnico #5 magnet core, and was used in the early Fireball, and Super twin double neck guitars from 1963 to 1966, when both models were dropped from the line. The SS6000 underwent several exterior dimensional changes to adapt it to the new F22 model guitar released in 1966. The same year, it was fitted into the F12 Twelve string that was getting ready for production. The next pickup that would supersede the SS6000, was a revolutionary new coil concept that Glenn had developed in the mid 60's. It had a vertically positioned double coil layout that produced clear single coil sound without the aggravating hum of single coils. This pickup was designated HR-8 "Piggy-back humbucker". It was designed to retrofit the SS6000 body cavity and mounting base without the necessity for modifications. This pickup was truly a breakthrough in innovative design, but the excitement was short lived. A patent search revealed that this principle had been patented in the mid 1930's, making the idea public domain. It had not been produced commercially, so there was no way other than the patent search, of knowing it was unpatentable. Many years later several pickup manufacturers used the same design principle under the name "Stacked Humbucker". This "Piggy-back" design is till used in current Fury 12 strings. In the early 80's, after several years of design, Fury hit the jackpot with completion of their "ZP" tubular pole piece pickup. This time they got to the patent office in time, and were issued 2 patents on the design in 1986. Glenn recalls that the ZP design was difficult to engineer because of several subtleties in the basic physics. On the other hand, he says, this new pickup had tremendous long range impact on the appeal of Fury instruments. It literally turned the company in a new direction. And, timing couldn't have been better. Fury's ultra high-mass bridge had been perfected about a year before, and was just waiting for a perfect pickup to match it. It was a marriage made in heaven. The bridge had endless sustain, and the low gravity ZP tubular pole pieces had almost no magnetic drag on the strings. The tone and sustain was incredible. This combination of components made Fury guitars more versatile, and gave them wider appeal for more types of music. Since 1962, Fury has released 25 models. Of all the models Fury saw reason to discontinue as market demands changed, only one model was ever reissued. This model was the "Fireball". Every discontinued model gets some requests from players to be reissued, but none drew the continual number of requests that the Fireball did. Players, young and old, thought the Fireball was the crown jewel of the Fury designs. Regardless of the repeated requests, Glenn had some doubts about its success on a scale that would justify the high cost of tooling up to build it. He felt that its styling, and the name Fireball, was too deeply dated in the 50's and 60's image. Finally, the decision was made to build the tooling to make a few prototypes that could measure market response. Rather than outfit the functional components identical to the originals, the bridge was upgraded to current design. The SS6000 single coil pickups were replaced with ZP humbuckers, and two frets were added to the fingerboard to upgrade the neck to 22 frets. The body shape was kept identical to the original 1962 design, with only a slight reshaping of the bottom cutaway to render better access to the two additional frets. The moment of truth came when 8 prototypes were ready to unveil for market response. The rest is history. Response was instant, and it was beyond all expectations. Convinced the Fireball reissue would be an asset to the model line, the first full scale production ran was done in 1990. From that date on, it has maintained strong sales, and now a 3 pickup version has been scheduled for release in 1999. Proof that old classics don't die. 1999 marks Fury's 37th year of guitar design and manufacturing. Glenn plans to reissue the Bandit and introduce the 3 Pickup Fireball late in 1999 and then shift more towards designing and building more special machinery to keep pace with manufacturing. As the millennium approaches, Fury is working to expand their market base into new territories that have not yet been reached by their instruments. Their goal is to grow the company with independent dealers worldwide and to keep production small enough to guarantee their products continue to be "noticeably finer musical instruments."
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