Lead guitarist for Spinal Tap, who looks oddly like Christopher Guest in a Jeff Beck wig. Not terribly articulate verbally, but can write beautiful music such as the tender piano instrumental "Lick My Love Pump" heard in the documentary movie This Is Spinal Tap. Also an inventor in between Tap's tours -- he's come up with folding wine glasses, and an amp capo which squeezes a stack of Marshall amplifiers to get the notes into the correct key.

Tufnel was born in 1944 in Squatney. There, at the young age of four, he met his first musical mentor, a skiffle band guitarist named Jimmy the Spot. Jimmy taught Tufnel to play loud. Tufnel met Spinal Tap band mate David St. Hubbins playing skiffle outside of a London subway station.

When Tufnel is not playing in Spinal Tap, he enjoys chess using pieces made from Nerf ("No one gets hurt."). Tufnel is an avid guitar collector. His prize is a foam-green Fender 6-string bass. He loves it so much he's never played it. In fact, he has it guarded around the rock by an armed guard. The guard not only protects the guitar from thieves but protects it from Tufnel's own desire to play it. "Playing it would be kind of like unvirgining a virgin." It's rare Tufnel even show it to anyone. ("Don't touch it.! Don't even point at it.")

In total Tufnel owns 112 guitars, mandolins, and basses. His collection includes:
  • two Strat-style Tom Andersons
  • a 1946 herringbone Martin D-28
  • a Guild 12-string
  • a Gibson Chet Atkins Solidbody Classic
  • two 1958 Flying V's
Tufnel invested some of his Spinal Tap earnings into a Scottish castle he somehow incorrectly assumed would result in a considerable tax write off. There he presumable hangs the Tufnel family coat of arms. The coat of arms consists of four sections. In the top left there's nothing. In the top right, there's a small spot. In the lower left, there's a quail. In the bottom right, there's nothing. Below is the Tufnel family motto "Leisure with Dignity".

Tufnel is an avid inventor. He has a shed on his farm in Kent where he can tinker. In his "inventing shed" he came up with not only the amp that goes to eleven but the foldable wine glass that you can keep in your pocket. The glass has four sides and hinges. The glass still has a number of bugs to work out, including the fact that the sides don't close tightly and most of the wine leaks out rather quickly. He feels once he lays his hands on some Chinese-made rubber hinges, all will be solved.

He also invented the "tone cozy". They're little wool caps you slip on your guitar's steel knobs, making them less cold to the touch.

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