Howdy!

The Wooden Body. Plain wooden planks of varying species are the predominant material for electric guitar bodies today, like they have been for the 70 odd years since Leo Fender began mass producing guitars. Wood expands and contracts from the effects of temperature and humidity changes.  Every time it grows or shrinks it creates tensions in the finish which, over time, lead to finish failure. The shrinking and expanding also throws the guitar out of tune. Because of this we chose not to use industry standard wooden plank boards. After researching everything from plastic composites to various plant based products we found the best material for stability, rigidity and excellent acoustic properties was still wood, but plywood.  Yes, plywood, but definitely not the cheap lumberyard variety everyone is familiar with. The entire body of our guitars is made from baltic birch plywood which is glued up void free with waterproof adhesives.  This premium hardwood plywood from Finland is the strongest plywood in the world with a parallel to the grain tensile strength of over 100MPa. The individual plies are very thin.  At the thickest part, in the center area of the guitar, a RetroLine '59 is composed of 34 crisscrossing layers of hardwood which drastically reduces shrinkage and expansion, preserving your guitar's finish.  Is this the cheapest material to craft a guitar body from?  Absolutely not, but we think it's the best, that's why we use it.

 

​The Back. Leo Fender made his solid body electric guitars out of a couple of 2 x 8's glued together to make a blank panel around 15" wide. He left the back of the guitars flat, presumably because all acoustic guitars up until that time had been flat. More than 99% of electric guitars are still made that way today. We started designing the RetroLine '59 with a blank piece of paper and a desire to, wherever we could, make improvements over the standard issue guitars available today. Virtually everyone has to look at their fingers on the fretboard at some point in time. With a flat backed guitar that's hanging in front of you perpendicular to the ground that's difficult to do. We observed that to see their fingers properly almost all players have, by necessity, incorporated an awkward move of some sort into their playing style. Some tighten the grip on their chording hand and awkwardly swivel their wrist to see their finger position, some try to push the top of the guitar into their belly with the wrist of their strumming hand while trying to still strum normally, some push out their hip or leg to change the angle of the guitar while others poke out their belly, and so it goes. These unnatural movements are counterproductive to comfort, good posture & playing the instrument in a relaxed steady manner. With this problem spotted, we dove into the books on ergonomics, which is the study of the human form, movement and efficiency in relation to objects in common use. We quickly learned that a slight curve on the back of the guitar would alleviate the majority of this problem. However, when calculating the best radius we found that a very different radius was needed depending on whether you were standing to play or sitting down. Further study of both positions revealed that there was a built in solution, because almost all players hold the body of the guitar directly in front of them when standing, but tuck it over under their strumming hand side when seated. We created a compound radius on the back of the guitar that started with a tight radius at the neck end of the body then flattened out to a shallower radius at the butt end of the guitar, substantially alleviating the problem for both standing and sitting positions. We prototyped the idea, combined with a decent sized round over of the side to back join, and it works wonderfully, so we have incorporated it as our new standard. A slight force of some kind still needs to be applied to initiate movement of the guitar, but it's almost insignificant compared to trying to deflect a flat back outward. The resulting back is more difficult and costly to build, but it's worth it! You deserve the best, that's why we do it!

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The Arm Cut. The arm cut Leo Fender introduced seven decades ago on the Strat is still widely used and copied today. The arm cut was a great innovation and it helps a lot to prevent banging your arm into the edge of the body.  But truth be told, Leo's arm cut design doesn't fit everyone.  It's a flat plane that starts and ends at specific spots. It fits and works for most players with average length arms depending on how high/low they wear the strap and how they hold the guitar against their body.  Again ergonomics was used to improve the design and make it work better for more people, especially children, teens, women and short men who tend to have shorter arms. We start our arm cut down low on the edge of the guitar and carry it right up to the edge of the bridge which creates a much wider arm cut. We also make the arm cut a radius, a piece of a circle, so there is no distinct edge to hit, just a gentle sweeping curve that your arm will always land on tangentially and smoothly no matter where on the arm cut it lands. Yes, it's more difficult and more time consuming to produce, but it's simply a better mouse trap. The fact that it gives the side edge of the RetroLine '59 a thin, sexy, sweeping, curve is just a beautiful bonus to top it all off.

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The Sound Holes. Although it's as beefy as a standard guitar from the neck join down to the bridge, the RetroLine '59 is a thin guitar overall.  Its inner sound chambers range from just 1 3/8" down to less than 5/8" in depth with much of it being only 1" deep. Still, it has enough acoustic power to be able to practice quietly without an amp.  We've accomplished this by using a resonant hardwood top and back combined with multiple sound holes carefully positioned above the central portion of each major "bubble" in the sound cavity's inner workings.  The fact that we've been able to make these sound holes so beautiful, with their stainless steel mesh and chrome accents, while adding to the personification of the '50's '60's era is a true testament to the designer's eye.

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Paint. The paint and clear coat system we use on the RetroLine '59 is the most durable, hardest, scratch and chip resistant paint available today.  It's epoxy based rather than the softer single and two part polyurethane based paints that dominate the guitar industry.  Its hardness makes our job of sanding and polishing more difficult but it's worth it to present you with the most durable and long lasting finish in the business. And, of course, it's available in the full color palette of the '57 Chevy, the palette we chose to fully exploit the feel and vibrancy of the '50' & '60's era.

 

As responsible shepards of the earth we paint all of our guitars in a paint booth which was designed specifically for us.  This clean room based paint booth scrubs the incoming air down to the MERV 17 rating which captures 99.97% of .3 to 1.0 micron sized particles so there is no chance of dust specks marring the freshly sprayed paint. Then the outgoing air is filtered to the same MERV 17 rating, then further filtered by a massive cylindrical filter filled with Premium Grade +1200 IAV virgin Australian charcoal with RC412 pore sizes.  This charcoal totally absorbs the very last of the fumes and chemicals. The filter releases only completely clean air, totally free of all airborne carried substances such as dust, spores, fumes, smoke, bacteria and even microscopic viruses.  Hospital operating room quality air is the only thing released from our paint booth, everything has been scrubbed out.

 

Neck Plate/Neck Join. This is one thing that Leo Fender got quite wrong from the engineering perspective and unfortunately it's lasted through the generations and is still the most common way of fastening a neck to a body.  By having the backplate the same shape and size as the neck cutout, the backplate acts as a cutting fulcrum whenever pressure is put on the neck to body joint.  It's easier to envision if you imagine the action of a vice because that's what it basically is. The thin wood of the main body that's left at the bottom of the neck cutout is clamped firmly between two hard objects, the back plate on one side and the base of the neck, with its long lever action, on the other. What's the first thing you do if you're trying to break off a stick that's a bit too strong to break by hand, you put it in a vice or between two fixed immoveable objects where it's held firmly on each side and you can easily break it off. The same premise is at play here on the backplate. While the system is plenty strong enough for initial use, or even years of use if the guitar is handled carefully, in practice each time you stress the neck joint by snagging the headstock on something you're walking past, or each time you set it down a bit too hard while holding just the neck, some damage occurs to the fibres of the wood that are trapped between the back plate and the butt of the neck. Over time the cumulative effects of these minute tears adds up and you get a loose or sloppy neck joint that can't be fixed by simply tightening the screws.  In an extreme example, say you have your guitar sitting on the sofa and someone sits on it by accident, the weakened neck joint can actually break completely. Our solution is simple, we make the RetroLine '59's neck backplate longer and wider by about an inch.  This means that you no longer have the bottom of the neck pocket lined up exactly between two hard fixed objects, plus, you can now attach four extra screws into the thicker wood beside the neck pocket increasing the overall strength and rigidity of the neck joint immeasurably. The backplate is now acting as a proper reinforcing plate, spreading any forces on the joint to the surrounding material, instead of concentrating those forces on the wood that's been trapped between the two aligned fixed objects. So rest assured that, barring significant abuse, your new RetroLine '59's neck joint should last indefinitely.

 

Asymmetric Neck. This was a simple improvement. Hold your hand in the air in a simulated guitar neck grip. Look at the hole where the guitar neck would be.  If you look carefully you'll see that the hole is not symmetrical, the crotch of your thumb side is a little bit squarer than your fingertip side. Ergonomics. We've made the top of the neck (the thumb crotch side) a little bit thicker than the bottom side to better fit the human hand. Because of the roundness of the back of the neck you can't really see it with the naked eye, but trust us, it's there, and it helps. It's a small but effective change.

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Carbon Fibre Neck Reinforcement. This added reinforcement for the neck is becoming somewhat commonplace with custom and bespoke guitar builders.  We agree, having two carbon fibre rods, one either side of the truss rod, extending from the 12th fret to almost the butt of the neck is very helpful. Fine luthiers add a little bit of extra slope to this area of the neck. Its purpose is to allow more swinging room for the strings without hitting and buzzing against the frets. This allows luthiers, including ourselves, to set the action very low without having buzz problems. The carbon fibre rods make the bottom portion of the neck very rigid, simplifying this task while also helping eliminate warpage in the neck.  All of our necks utilise this carbon fibre strengthening technique. 

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Proprietary Neck Treatment. The back of every RetroLine '59 guitar neck is completed with our proprietary finishing treatment. When playing on a glossy finished neck, sweaty hands can sometimes grab like a mini suction cup. Satin finishes help but don't alleviate the problem fully, plus they introduce a few quirks of their own. Unfinished necks become dirty and unpredictable as to the ways your hand will glide over them. Oiled necks can become gummy and sticky. Super dry hands create a whole new set of problems all their own. We believe we've found an ideal solution to keep your hands, whatever shape they are in, flowing effortlessly across the back of a RetroLine '59's neck. Sorry, we can't tell you the secret details, because then we'd have to kill you, and we'd much rather have you as a customer.

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Compound Radius Fretboards. Every RetroLine '59 guitar comes standard with a compound radius fretboard, meaning that the radius of the curvature at the nut end of the fretboard is different (smaller radius, more pronounced curvature) than the radius at the body end of the fretboard (larger radius with flatter curvature). The radii on the standard model RetroLine '59 is 9.5" at the nut then flattening out to a 12" radius where it meets the body.  If those radii don't suit you a different pair of radii can be ordered for additional cost via our semi custom options list. Any radius from 6" to 30" can be created with our custom fretboard radiusing machine. Many luthiers, if they offer compound radii at all, laboriously hand sand the fretboards hoping not to have any wows or dips in them. Others take their best shot at it by free hand sanding on an upright belt sanding machine, again hoping to get a smooth error free transition along the entire length and width of the fretboard. We achieve precise, accurate, smoothly flowing results every time. CNC machines can match our precision, but only with much bother and added expense. If you don't know what radius you like and have 2 or more guitars, there's a good chance your favourite player has become your favourite player largely due to fretboard radius. Simply buy a set of fretboard radius measurement tools from your favourite music store or somewhere like Amazon and measure your existing guitar's fretboards. These measurement tools are available for just a few dollars.

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Redesigned Pickups. First off, a discussion about lipstick pickups compared to other single coil pickups and the many misunderstandings about their differences.  Lipstick pickups were first created by company owner Nathan Daniel when Danelectro guitars were introduced in 1954. They were Danelectro's primary pickup design, and hence, the main pickups used in many models for literally dozens of other brand names like Silvertone which Danelectro manufactured under contract. Like his guitars, lipstick pickups were the cheapest pickups he could devise and make and, therein, lies the problem. They have been tarnished for the intervening seven decades by the stigma of the cheapness of their manufacture combined with the low quality of the entry level guitars they were installed in. They have suffered because this stigma has prevented them from ever being installed in a truly mainstream high end mass produced guitar which could have shown their many virtues, economy of manufacture among them. I know the following statements will seem highly controversial to many who believe the largely unchallenged ongoing seven decade cheapness and low quality stigma, but nothing could be further from the truth, lipstick pickups are excellent pickups. They are fully encapsulated in a metal case and the tubular circumference of the case limits the pickup's number of  copper windings. The happy and fortuitous result of the effect of the fully surrounding metal case and the limited windings is that lipstick pickups have a very true reproduction of the sound of the guitar's strings. They have a brightness and clear, crispy, detailed sound that is often described as jangly or chiming compared to other single coil pickups. The comparison is often made that a lipstick pickup sounds like the sound produced by tingling a spoon against the side of a fine crystal wine glass, and the sound of other single coil pickups is like tingling the same spoon against the side of a thick department store water glass. The lipstick is crystal clear and detailed while the more popular standard single coil is thicker and muddier. The overwhelming popularity of the now more typical single coil compared to a lipstick pickup is all a happenstance of how each were originally marketed decades ago. The crisper, cleaner lipsticks in cheap guitars, and the muddier, denser sounding single coils in expensive guitars. It's all about perception and marketing. As to the difference in signal strength between the two, the lipstick pickup's reduced number of windings produces a lower strength output signal, compared to other single coil pickups, and thus, requires a higher amount of amplification. So, in any given amplifier, you simply set the volume higher for a lipstick pickup and lower for the Fender/Gibson style single coil pickup. Neither one is a "good" or a "bad" output level, they are simply different in the same way different cans of soda have different amounts of fizz. However, over the decades, guitar players used to Fender or Gibson style single coil pickups have noticed the moderated output of lipstick pickups when playing a guitar fitted with them, and chose to think of the lipsticks as being inferior simply because it was a lower output signal, another false perception which has led to the ongoing stigma of lipstick pickups being perceived to be of poor quality and function. However, even though they were built into entry level guitars, many famous guitarists have recognised and relished the clear tone of the lipstick pickups and played guitars equipped with them. Among them, this far from exhausting, list of guitarists: (alphabetically) Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd), Beck, Billy Bragg, Jack Bruce (Cream), R.L. Burnside, J.J. Cale, Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, Elvis Costello, Steve Earle, Dave Edmunds, John Entwhistle (The Who), John Foggerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival), John Frusciante (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Rory Gallagher, Jimi Hendrix, Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age), John Lee Hooker, Steve Howe (Yes), Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones), Mark Knopfler, Alvin Lee, Alex Lifeson (Rush), Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Dave Navarro (Jane’s Addiction), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Dee Dee Ramone (The Ramones), Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi), Bruce Springsteen, Pete Townshend (The Who), Ike Turner, Jimmie Vaughan, Tom Verlaine (Television), Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys), Ronny Wood (The Rolling Stones), Link Wray, Thom Yorke (Radiohead) and Frank Zappa. 

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For the RetroLine '59 we examined the current offerings of available lipstick pickups and found them all to be quite alike.  All of them, that we were able to sample, had the same length of bobbin which is really quite short and does not come close to filling the entire casing. Our testing showed that the bobbin was marginally too short to capture all of the nuances of the high and low E strings, at least by our standards. This was compounded by the fact that the bobbins were not fixed in position in the middle of the case, they were only held in place by the wire exiting the case and by the friction of the bobbin against the wall of the tube. A big bump on either the top or bottom of the guitar, on your knee for example, could move the bobbin either up or down within the casing far enough to entirely exclude picking up any sound from one of the E strings, and that's simply not acceptable. They had magnets of varying thicknesses ranging from ceramic material through various grades of Alnico. Most were only wound with copper to about half of the bobbin capacity. We decided that the available casings were of great quality so we use them. But we developed our own longer bobbin which we fit with a nice powerful, thick, wide and longer Alnico 5 magnet, and hand wind, in house, to create exceptionally clear and robust pickups. Though difficult to produce, our custom bobbin has very thin walls, just half a millimetre thick, to allow more copper windings to be used. We make nicely paired sets of "standard" models of neck and bridge pickups with different winding amounts in each. We also make our optional more powerful "overwound" matched sets. The direction of the windings and the polarity of the pickups is completely reversed between the neck pickup and the bridge pickup. In this way when you are using the "both" position on the pickup switch the two pickups combine to create a single, spaced apart, hum cancelling, or hum bucker, pickup.  All dual pickup guitars should have reversed pickups wired like this, but sadly many don't. We have decided not to publish the various specifications for our pickups because the information would not be valuable in anything other than a comparison to another lipstick pickup and would be very misleading if compared to "standard" single coil pickups.