News And Updates

Mark Davis, from outside Melbourne, Australia, had a busy last winter building a very interesting and innovative carbon fiber guitar. He recently purchased a second EGS bridge, so I am looking forward to seeing what is in store. Mark is active at the Aussie Guitar Gear Heads forum and has a thread documenting this whole build there.

This guitar has a core of Australian pine-like wood King Billy and is fully carbon fiber. It has several fairly unique features, such as pickups mounted out of view from behind (to give an un-interrupted CF top) and glued on frets (again to not ruin the fibers of the CF weave).

Mark writes:

The total weight of this guitar is 1.3kg or 2.875lbs. Pickups are Adeson Icendiary in the bridge and a Fenton Weill in the mid position. Switching is single / single and split h/b in series , and bridge h/b. Frets are hardened SS and glued on. Nut is home made to suit purpose as are the knobs. I new exactly what I was aiming for from the beginning with the hidden P/U’s this was due to the fact that I wanted uninterrupted fibers running all the way to the bridge This creates the problem of getting the strings close to the body so as the P/U’s work. A simple mold was made that creates the top of the guitar, and a mold for the fret board. Its a piece of laminex bent and reinforced on the sides, with a bit of design work the center forms a 16 in radius. The rear of the blank was then laminated with a combination of uni and woven cloth. Peel ply was applied over to control wet out. The face will be laminated in the mold.

The Aussie Guitar Gear Heads forum thread documents the build steps and show off Mark’s impressive design skills and creative solutions.

Here are some pictures of #4:

Here are some pictures of #1, now with Moses Graphite neck in place of the original:

Here are some photos of #3:

Here are some pictures of EGS guitar #2.

Here are a few sound/video clips of the EGS guitars. They are recorded with the video camera built-in microphone so not particularly high quality, but should provide some comparison between the different guitars.

The clips are all recorded with identical settings of all controls, with very neutral settings. No reverb or effects, except for a bit of overdrive in the first clip.

More clips will follow.

Demo #1 – Mats Lundberg

Demo #2 – Joe Pesce

Demo #3 – Niclas Höglind

I have made a few sets of bridges in alternate colors – for marketing purposes but also for the future EGS demo builds.

Incidentally, I am unexpectedly sold out of bridges as of today 20 January. I would expect the next batch to be ready in about 6 weeks. This is a great opportunity to order custom colors since I can fit them into production at a much lower cost. Contact me if you are interested in placing a pre-order.

A picture says more than a thousand words, so here are a few:

Click on the images for larger versions.

I have put the EGS demo up on YouTube.

Here are some of the vital statistics about the participants:

• Jonas Isaksson – main instrument is the clarinet, believe it or not. Although he prefers the violin… I, for one, am pretty impressed with his guitar skills.
• Nisse Blomster – jazz improvization and musical theory student from Uppsala, often appearing with the band Blue Stripe.
• Daniel Palmqvist – solo artist and guitarist of The Murder of My Sweet.

And some vital stats about the guitar itself:

• Weight: 1850 grams/4 lbs
• Swamp ash back, stained “Ebony Black”, treated with Watco Danish Oil. Large tone cavities cut both top and bottom.
• Curly maple top (5 mm thickness), finished with Watch Danish Oil. Black veneer strip in centre.
• Three-piece wenge neck with cherry veneer strips.
• Ebony fretboard.
• Carbon fiber truss rod.
• Super wide/high frets
• 25.5″ scale length on low E, 25″ scale on high E string
• Strandberg EGS fixed bridges
• Lace Alumitone humbucker pickups
• 5-position pickup selector (front HB, front SC + rear SC out of phase, front HB + rear HB series, front SC + rear SC in series, rear HB.

I have had the privilege of supplying a custom colored bridge to amazing luthier Michael Spalt. Michael himself is a bit pre-occupied with relocation plans and website overhaul, but until something more extensive can be arranged, here are a few pictures for your viewing pleasure!

Oh, and did I mention that the complete instrument weighs 1,9 kgs (4 lbs 4 oz)?