He's mostly known for making hardware - people talk about which Wilkinson Strat Vibrato they should install. My Pacifica has a Wilkinson bridge. Very nice too. He's English, makes parts and pickups, but has been involved in guitar design a lot. He's been keen to start his own line for a while.
Fretking had a couple of false starts. Actually, he was even working on an agreement for Tokai to make them in 2004 ("Fret-King by Tokai" they were to be called) but there was some issue with distributors and whatnot and the deal got canned.
Now he's got it all up and running and is the first major British guitar manufacturer in years - with some models made in China and some made in England.
I just went through all the models recently and there are some real honeys.
He's also made a really startling new product. A really elegant little self-tuning bridge that will soon be available as a separate part. Much more compact and reliable than the robot tuners that Gibson has been using. It allows you to programme in 6 different tunings. You select with the knob, strum, and it's in tune. Very cool. At the moment it's only available in the FretKing Supermatic guitar.
It's all here:
http://www.fret-king.com/
