This was probably one of the most unusual guns I have built; not because of the heavy, dry zebra wood (a terrible wood for aquatic environments), but because of the guy it was going to.

A good friend of mine, Derek Harrar has never been, and probably never will, go spearfishing. That said, I owed him 'big time'.

So here's the story... Almost ten years ago when I started building guitars, Derek decided he wanted one. He gave me a deposit and we went and purchased a 10' piece of 8x4 zebra wood to begin the project. The problem was, I never started the project because I got sidetracked with a new hobby - freediving.

Almost immediately, I started building my own spearguns, guns for friends, and eventually, guns for customers.

Whenever I'd see, or talk to Derek, he would mention the guitar project and how it was going. I would always reply, "Oh yeah, I'll get to that pretty soon." Then one day in September, I was going through my stock and found the now ten year old piece of zebra wood. I thought it might make a great looking gun and immediately started the build.

Throughout the the build, the challenge turned out to be working with the zebra wood without burning it. Even with sharp blades, slowing the feed rate would produce slight burns. Any machine sanding, other than the orbital, would not only burn the wood, but suck the little remaining moisture out so fast, it would cause small inclusions in the end grain.

Another difficulty turned out to be keeping my big mouth shut! It was hard to fight the urge to tell Derek about the project, and I had to go through his wife and secretary to get his shipping information.

In the end, everything turned out just as I wanted. The clear finish was burn-free and free of any inclusions or cracks. Derek was shocked, and of course, had a million questions about the gun.

For a special touch, I used a piece of ebony, an extremely hard wood, typically used on the fret board of a guitars, for the handle (right).

The one mistake I did make was telling him about the leftover zebra wood. Now I'll have to hear about his guitar for another 10 years.