Production of stock models is under way! The current operation of full custom builds will remain as-is, but as most of you know, the wait list is quite long. Here comes your chance to snap up a 100% .strandberg* guitar without the wait!

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.