Solace – Simplicity Meets Complexity

The Solace is a new guitar that draws inspiration from instruments thought history.

The Pickup

At the heart of the guitar is a special designed blade style pickup, that is inserted into a non ferrous stainless steel “Cigar” tube. This shields the single coil design incredibly well, making it quiet and great for the studio. The idea comes from the big steel/slide guitar pickups of the 50’s, combined with the “Lipstick” style pickups. It features a 39 awg wire, a 3″ steel blade pole piece and Neodymium magnets. It has a big full, clean sound and is great for finger style, chords, bottleneck, and phrasing. It is mounted to the guitar with a brushed Aluminum ring.

The Neck Joint

The neck is attached to the body using one bolt. The neck has a tenon extending almost to the bridge, hidden beneath the top pice of Formica. This allows the bolt to be inserted at the neck “Nodal Point”, exciting the resonance and tonal qualities throughout the whole instrument. The bolt is inserted through the back and screws into a insert that is fastened to the “top” of the neck, pinching the neck at the nodal point.

The bottom tenon of the neck has a round, curved surface that is keyed with a modified rabbit style joint. This stye of joint maximizes the surface contact and stabilizes the side to side movement of the neck. The neck angle is machined into the pocket, giving the appropriate amount of angle for the ideal action and built in structural tension.

The Fingerboard Surface

The 24″ scale length, which is shorter than your std guitar, really permits the use of heavy gauge strings. I want the ability to put on a 14 gauge string set, and really let the guitar sing out, either with chords or a bottleneck slide. In order to achieve the stiffness and reliability needed we added two carbon fiber rods “Beams” that follow the taper of the neck on each side of the two way adjustable truss rod. Not only are the “beams” inlayed into the neck, they are also inlayed into the bottoms of the fingerboard, giving a perfect mate and stiffness to the neck.

The Tailpiece

The unique “Hingeless” tailpiece works effortlessly, and is connected to the body by coupling onto a pin. The pin is inlayed into the body 3/4″ deep and fastened with a screw. The floating tailpiece wraps around the pin and the strength is far superior than a hinge style or wooden system. Built to withstand the heaviest of strung gauges and zero maintenance, this not only is structurally bulletproof but sounds incredible! The string energy and transfer is conducted to the pin and excited the guitar in a musical way , the effect is similar to a grand piano type of clarity.

The strings are attached through the bottom of the tailpiece and the ball ends are anchored in the slots. These tailpieces are machined out of solid aircraft grade aluminum and lightly sanded to give it a brushed finish. Low maintenance, light weight, and non corrosive.

The Woods

Tempered tone woods are used for the body and neck. A Basswood body and Hard rock maple neck, baked to unveil a few unique features. The process has been developed by a company specializing in this process and through years of research and development they are able to deliver incredible results. “Cooking” or “Baking” the woods unleash a handful of properties. The list of benefits are:

Renewable and accessible woods
Enhanced tone though the baking process
Greater stability
Lighter weight

The neck and sides of the guitar are finished with Tung oil and give it an incredibly silky and natural feel.

The Formica

Ive wanted to build a guitar that is low maintenance and doesn’t some with the same precautions as a high gloss lacquered guitar. So the Formica was the first choice. The tone is surprisingly incredible, the string reflection adds to the clarity and touch sensitive effect of the tone. The smooth matte finish is incredibly comfortable and will last a lifetime. At this time it comes in the std matte black color, but in the near future I will be offering a couple options. One option will be a book matched “Brazilian Rosewood” formica. Some incredible sample are being used for the process, and will come in sets, front and back, with matching head stock and rear overlay.

The Capacitor

I am hand making the capacitors for these guitars. Made from %100 hemp paper and hemp oil. These are measuring at .050 Uf and work incredibly well with the pickup and pots, giving a dark muscly tone and feel.