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New guitar with Lace Alumitone pickup

Just finished in time for Bristol Guitar Show on Sunday. A few weeks ago I had some Lace "Matchbook" pickups from California, and decided to build a couple of experimental guitars using them: here's the first one. I decided to put as much of the good stuff into it as I could. The neck is 3 piece laminated sapele and maple, and has a 2-way adjustable trussrod. The fretboard is black walnut, Van Gent Super Jumbo fretwire with handmade real pearl inlays and edge dot markers, bone nut and the machineheads are Van Gent DeLuxe. The bridge is our new stainless steel unit, and the soundhole covers are also custom stainless steel. The pickup is the low profile Lace Matchbook induction pickup, with tone and volume, "orange drop" tone capacitor, split switch, Neutrik jack and custom stainless steel plate, and all wired with vintage cloth and braided wires. The body has "wings" to help balance the guitar both on a strap and on the knee, finished in gunstock oil. Finishing it off are our balanced tension "Zilpha" hexcore handwound strings.

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Comment by Poorness Studios on July 1, 2019 at 11:49pm: Very nice. A unique aesthetic on that one.

Comment by Alan Dillard on June 25, 2018 at 9:31am: Have been puzzling about that hole in the neck to install one of these and wondered how to brace the neck. So when you glued the side braces at the hole site, did you also screw them through the back of the box? Thanks, Alan Dillard, aka "Old Goat"

Comment by Alan Dillard on June 25, 2018 at 9:30am: Have been puzzling about that hole in the neck to install one of these and wondered how to brace the neck. So when you glued the side braces at the hole site, did you also screw them through the back of the box? Thanks, Alan Dillard, aka "Old Goat"

Comment by Larry on May 3, 2017 at 9:56am: A bit of artistry is an understatement! Artistry, craftsmanship, patience and comittment. I'm going to for you. SWEET boxes.

Comment by Maddog on May 3, 2017 at 9:31am: NICE NICE NICE!!!

Comment by Jerry Jordan on May 1, 2017 at 1:06am: ooh ahh.,.,.,desirable.,.,

Comment by ChickenboneJohn on April 30, 2017 at 11:13pm: It's not madness.. just logic and hard work..and a bit of artistry maybe. I tried this and the other Lace-equipped guitar out at the Bristol Guitar Show on Sunday, and have to say I loved the Lace "Matchbook" pickups.

They don't seem as gruff sounding as my usual minihumbuckers, but they have a fantastic cut and clarity to them. The "split" switch is pretty subtle, but especially with a fairly clean setting on the map you can switch to a really cool twangy, snappy tone. Maybe it was just the novelty of having different pickups to try out, but I have to say, these are my absolute favourite pickups at the moment. They are not cheap...they are indeed rather expensive, but I've got another couple of them to try out in other guitars, so I'll see how those turn out. It's neat being able to drill just one hole through the top of the guitar to install them, but the passive transformer on the back of the unit meant I had to drill quite a large hole right through the neck as well...and then I felt it needed reinforcing with some glued-on side flitches to compensate for the loss of integrity thru' the centre of the neckstick. So the installation isn't the simplest (although at least you don't have to rout or cut the top of the box to fit it), but no big deal really - and I certainly felt it was worth the effort.