The first model out is based on Tosin Abasi’s #17:

• 8-string, 28″-26.5″ fanned fret scale
• Rosewood/carbon fiber neck w/ maple stringers, rosewood fretboard
• Intersecting Plane Neck Profile™ (Licensed from Rick Toone)
• Swamp ash body, curly/flamed/quilt maple top
• 2 x chrome Lace Aluma™ X-Bar pickups
• Black hardware

These will be offered directly to those of you already on the wait list, and to select dealers globally, at a reasonable price point. If you are interested, contact orders@strandbergguitars.com. The current plan includes two variations each of 6-, 7-, and 8-string models, all bolt-on.

Last week was spent in Ohio, with Jim Lewis, president and CEO of Strictly 7 Guitars (S7G), as the host. I met with their staff and  immensely competent network of suppliers throughout the week and spent day and night doing knowledge transfer to the people who will be building 100% genuine .strandberg* guitars going forward.

S7G will do the final assembly and oversee the process. In case you haven’t checked them out lately, you should. Although an S7G instrument is radically different from a .strandberg*, we share many philosophies, and on a personal level I have just hit it off with Jim and everyone else on staff. This company is going places for sure, and by leveraging our strengths and pooling our resources, we (including you, the customer) are in for a win-win-win situation.

Here is a short pictorial of my week, including some of the amazingly skilled people I met throughout.

On a lighter note, Akron just happens to have some of the best hamburgers on the planet. Here with Allan Marcus and Nick Cetrone of S7G.

Rob Saurer will take care of some of the wood selection and gluing operations.

Rob inspects some Solar7 (Ola Englund Signature Series) neck through blanks being glued

One of the gluing rigs

Vacuum bags are an efficient way of laminating tops

There are only two machines like this in existence, the other one is owned by Gibson…

Here, a laser driven by the CAD program is used as a guide to line up the template, or spoilboard as it is called.

The first operation is prepared. Vacuum is used to hold the workpieces, and the black lines in the picture show the tape that holds the vacuum.

Here, the first trial piece is cut, and the back is being prepared.

And lastly, the top and cavity cover are cut from the same piece.

After gluing the top, it is brought back for routing of the final profile, pickups, neck pocket, etc.

The body is then flipped over and the back is cut

You know it’s got to be good when the scrap pieces look like this…. For trial purposes, we took a cherry top that Rob had found on another job. The body is poplar, which is not necessarily the prettiest wood, but it is a good tonewood and the grain on these particular pieces form a “wave” when looked at from the rear for a cool effect. You may spot a tiny glitch in the programming, which was subsequently corrected.

Dean is talking Jim through some of the intricacies of neck profile programming.

A happy Jim is showing Wayne the finished product after a successful neck run (on the first attempt!). We now owe Dean a steak dinner.

The neck jig after successfully running the first neck.

Dean ran the machines and did all the programming supported by yours truly over the course of three days.

Rick does engraving and inlay work

Joel does binding, painting and some other work

So your future guitar is in good hands! As said above, these are stock models with set specifications. We are aiming for a short turnaround time on orders. Custom work will be served by the wait list as before, although efficiencies in purchasing, material preparation and gluing will help increase the pace of the custom builds as well.

Strandberg Guitarworks was chosen as one of eight companies to take part in a business incubator program at Uppsala Innovation Center during the spring of 2012. While taking part in this program has taken considerable time away from actually building guitars, it has put the business in a place where it has a well supported plan to grow and to continue delivering fantastic guitars. Obviously, this is a very exciting development and you will have a lot to look forward to!

This website will continue to exist and be updated with new designs, ideas, pictures and drawings – still under Creative Commons licensing, and remain the location for hardware sales. The strandbergguitars.com website will remain as-is – dedicated to the guitar part of the business.

#14

The new #15

#26

#31

Nevertheless, eleven responses are still missing. Regrettably, if you are one of these eleven and you do not respond by tomorrow, your spot is lost.

For the rest of you – the wait list will be published in a few days along with some other updates.

The image above shows the prototype, which is a conventionally shaped bag, just 100 mm shortened in the neck portion. One thing that I like in particular is the laptop pocket and “fully loaded” organizer pocket in front. I have biked to the day job as well as gone on business trips with laptop, iPad and all other necessities in this bag alone. In addition, the shoulder straps are comfortable and can be fixed to the back of the bag with velcro strips, which are cleverly hidden when not in use.

The one thing I noticed is that when I ride my bike (and I do most of the time, and I wear a helmet too) the bag hits me at the back of the head, especially when wearing a helmet. Also, when the bag is squeezed into its waterproof SKB shell as in the picture above, the remaining space could be used more efficiently. The new design addresses both of these issues:

As you can see, the bag is asymmetrically shaped, as some hard cases are. It comes with rubber feet on both the side and the bottom, so you can rest it on the floor without having to “jerk” it or use both hands to get it into an upright position when it needs to be put down. This also leads to a larger available space in the SKB shell. Lastly, when worn on the back, the neck portion will not hit the back of the head (is the idea). Remember that a typical .strandberg* guitar weighs only 2 kg (4 lbs), so the fact that it is not symmetrically placed should not be that much of an issue.

Comments are welcome if they are quick – the order will be placed in a matter of days.

After a lot of experimenting, I have come up with a preferred compound radius formula starting with 16″ at the zero fret and reaching 20″ at the 24th fret. For a 25.75″-25″ scale on a 7-string with a neutral 4th fret, the following picture shows the radius that each fret describes:

As you can see, the increase in radius between each fret is not linear, but less at the first frets and the last frets, due to the angles of the frets.

The idea of making the press insert out of a flexible material and adjustable had been brewing for a while, and here is the first prototype.

The insert is made out of PEEK, which is very strong, while still flexible. Glue squeeze out doesn’t stick to it, as an added benefit. The adjustment range is from 12″ to approximately 25″ and easily accomplished by turning the handle. I am planning on adding a counterweight to make the press itself balance. It has a 43mm mount, which is the same as most electric hand drill machine stands. I put my scales in the one pictured above and could easily accomplish 40 kg of pressure without the stand budging, and this was more than enough to press frets.

I made this for my workshop, but will be happy to have a batch made. Manufacturing cost is highly dependent on the number of units (i.e. the prototype you see was _very_ expensive). Let me know if you are interested, and if we get enough volume, it might be almost affordable. For reference, the StewMac Jaws fret pressing system costs $240, and the complete arbor press system costs $165. This will cost more for sure, just to set expectations.

Here is a short clip demonstrating it in action:

This means that #15 will be for sale, with a new neck. You will have a choice of neck materials and shape – scale length will be 25.75″-24.75″. Pickups are Lundgren M7s, master volume, 3-position pickup selector.

Individuals already on the wait list will have priority, and will have to give up their position on the wait list when completing the purchase. Exact pricing will depend on neck options – contact me with your preferences and forgive me if it takes a few days to respond.

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.

I start with GraphTech piezo equipped saddles for Wilkinson tremolos and saw off just the front portion.

I then put them up in the milling machine and mill them down to the correct thickness.

The next step is to shape them roughly. I usually do this on a Dremel with a disc grinder.

I make sure the fit into the custom bridge/tuner housings. These have been modified from the original by having a slot where the saddle would normally sit, and a hole for the wire to go through.

Next, after some final finishing work, is installing them into the guitar. I now rout a gradually deeper channel under the bridges themselves.

Each cable is hidden under the next bridge, ensuring there is some slack for intonation and string height adjustment.

The final assembly also includes a string grounding cable that the 1st string needs to be threaded through. The other strings are grounded through the zero fret.

This assembly can be used with for example the GraphTech Acousti-Phonic pre-amp, but also with the Hexpander pre-amp.