News And Updates

Here are a few pictures of the final guitar stand. There was no good-looking plywood to be had in town, so I had to settle for this material which is called “OSB” or Oriented Strand Board. It’s cheap, durable, and I would imagine is kind of ecologically sound since it’s made from waste wood. Having said that, it might well contain awful glue compounds or have been shipped from across the globe… The weight turned out to be 490 grams (a little over 1 lb) which is well below most, and they are easy to pack.

I did make a few spare ones for the .strandberg* owners that I will meet at NAMM. Future orders will also have the option of including a stand and those of you that own a .strandberg* but don’t have a stand can purchase one.

Another year has passed and what a year it has been! It is now four years since the development of the Ergonomic Guitar System started, but it was this year that the guitar making part really took off. Since Tosin Abasi and I met at NAMM, the videos of him playing his .strandberg* guitars and doing other demos have well over 250,000 views. During 2011, #6 – #12, and #15 – #17 were delivered and #13 and #14 are being completed right now. 50 or so sets of bridges have been sold to other luthiers. There is a wait list of over 70 guitar orders. What this means for 2012 is full steam ahead! With NAMM 2012 just around the corner, bass hardware has just been announced, and a whole new line of guitars will be announced shortly. Aside from endorsees Chris Letchford (Scale the Summit) and Misha Mansoor (Periphery), I am thrilled to welcome on board Al Mu’min (the HAARP Machine) and Dustie Waring (Between the Buried and Me). Thank you everyone who has supported Strandberg Guitarworks during 2011. Here’s to a great 2012!

Sales of hardware is currently on hold due to high demand, as odd as that may sound. Here’s why:

The cost of manufacturing a batch of hardware is basically driven by four (five) parameters: (programming machines, one time cost), machine setup, material cost, time in the machines and amount of human intervention/manual labor. If you are a Floyd-Rose or Ibanez, production runs of many thousands of units make it worth automating processes completely and having dedicated tooling and machines set up and ready to go. Optimizing all the steps and spreading the one time costs out over a large number of units cuts the cost and you as a customer can purchase a high quality unit at a decent price despite several points in the distribution chain having taken their cut.

The EGS hardware has the same costs of programming and the same setup cost for the machines for each batch but there are several differences, most notably that the costs are distributed across a much smaller number of units. The volume does not warrant complete automation, which means that there is manual labor going into the manufacturing process. By only selling direct with a low margin, costs are cut as much as possible. The batch sizes of manufacturing are kept as large as the business allows to minimize the setup cost per unit manufactured. Quality is never compromised though.

The situation today, at the end of November 2011, is that the stocks of guitar hardware are so low that the near term .strandberg* guitar backlog needs all that remains. There will be hardware available again, but it will some time before the business can bear the investment of another batch, especially considering that bass hardware is in the works. Note that if you are looking to order a large quantity, the situation changes completely – in this case, a new batch can be initiated more or less immediately.

Hopefully the reasons can be understood, and it will be worth the wait for you. Keep watching this space for announcements about availability.

As a complement to this site, and more product centric with respect to the .strandberg* guitars, are very pleased to announce the launch of a new website, strandbergguitars.com.

Please check it out, and in particular, feel free to use the social media integration with Facebook and other sites. This functionality will evolve more over time.

This site, guitarworks.thestrandbergs.com, will continue to exist and continue to serve the purpose of a development blog and progress updates of on-going builds.

Here are some opportunities to meet Ola Strandberg and try out a .strandberg* guitar in 2011:

- Buenos Aires, Argentina, 27-31 July

- São Paulo, Brazil, 1-4 August

- Stockholm, Sweden, 1-2 October

- Toronto, Canada, 16-19 October

- Boston, MA, around 27 October (tentative)

Feel free to get in touch if you would like to set up a meeting!

It is with great pride and joy that we can today announce jointly that Strandberg Guitarworks is the first licensed user of Rick Toone’s patented Trapezoidal Neck Profile™ (TNP™) and Intersecting Plane Neck Profile™ (IPNP™) technologies.

The TNP™ has been used on a few builds already (#3, #6) and has been extremely well received by the musician community. In addition to its excellent ergonomics, I have found that the design makes for a more stable neck that also sounds exceedingly good. In build #8, commissioned by Tosin Abasi, Rick Toone has been engaged to work directly with Tosin to adapt the design to his exact specification.

Having finally almost recovered from jet-lag and caught up with life again, here is a short pictorial report from Tokyo.

Shun Nokina, owner of #2, was my shaperone. During my visit, we worked out the details for him acting as my dealer in Japan. His first order has already come in!

He had rented a studio in the Ikebukuro district, for demonstrating the .strandberg* guitars in two sessions.

Key to the success was also my good friend Charlie, who helped interpret.

Session 1

Session 2

For higher resolution pictures, please check the gallery below:

Next week, Strandberg Guitarworks will be in Tokyo. My now good friend, and owner of #2, Shun Nokina has kindly arranged a .strandberg* showcase for Friday afternoon and evening. We already have 12 RSVPs, so a great time is expected! The video camera is coming along, so hopefully there will be some clips to show.

Sunday was an equally fun day, with lots of traffic in the booth. I still had far too little time to walk around and realize now that there were tons of things I should have looked for.

Here’s part of the motley crew – should have had a “before” picture as well:

Elias Kesh, who helped me out with booth duty (thanks!)

Trev Wilkinson, one of the big innovators in the guitar world!

And Thomas Nordegg again, he came by with Don and Rocket Richotte (check him out!)