Musicians feeling the economy’s pinch won’t be relegated to drooling over Flaxwood Guitars’ stellar tone and top-notch playability much longer. In just a few months, the eco-friendly company that burst onto 2005’s high-end guitar scene is expected to roll out a less expensive line of guitars.
Flaxwood Guitars With Bolt-On Neck Design
The instruments in Flaxwood’s upcoming line retain the tonal and stability benefits of the company’s patented manufacturing process. To lower production costs, this new line will sport a bolt-on neck design as opposed to the 3-D glued neck joints of Flaxwood’s current models.
“The new bolt-ons which we hope to unveil at Summer NAMM will have a much lower price point,” says Rick Nelson, Flaxwood’s Director of Sales for North America. “This will allow us to reach a larger audience.”
Are Flaxwood Guitars Worth the Cost?
Though Flaxwood has certainly made a reputation for quality in the guitar scene, they haven’t yet reached that “larger audience”. Current models of Flaxwood guitars run between two and three grand. “We’re higher in the food chain pricewise,” admits Nelson. “That puts us in a limited market.”
Premiere Guitar Magazine’s Pat Smith asserts in his June 2009 review that even though the price seems high, the investment is worth it. “I have played guitars many times the cost of these that can’t touch them for playability, fit, or finish,” he says. “The sound is good and versatile, and the neck is probably the best feeling neck I’ve ever had my hands on.”
Flaxwood guitars owe much of that superior sound and feel to their innovative design. Nearly a decade ago, a team of industrial designers and luthiers in Finland combined their skills to create a synthetic tonewood by blending ground spruce and a binding agent in a high-pressure injection molding process. The tonewood they designed has the consistency of ebony, produces instruments with strikingly consistent tone, is impervious to humidity and temperature changes, and is a completely renewable resource.
Flaxwood Guitars Gaining Momentum
Ironically, the innovative process which built Flaxwood’s reputation is also one of their biggest hurdles in reaching that larger audience. Even environmentally-conscious guitar players think long and hard before purchasing an instrument made from non-traditional materials.
Flaxwood has found their biggest challenge is educating players to put aside their preconceptions. “Our most successful sales people don’t bother to tell the story,” says Nelson. “They let the instrument do the talking. They put a Flaxwood guitar in the hands of a player and say, ‘Here, try this.’ When the player becomes comfortable with the instrument, they explain the technology and the preconceptions melt away.”
Pairing the consistency of injection molding with old-school master luthiery, Flaxwood believes they’ve found the perfect marriage of tradition and innovation. Perhaps the lower prices of the new line will be what it takes to push players past preconceptions and get Flaxwood Guitars the audience they deserve.
In related articles, musicians can…
- Learn more about the history and sound of Flaxwood Guitars.
- Read about the environmental crisis surrounding tropical hardwoods and what some guitar makers and players are doing to help.
- Discover how a new amendment to the Lacey Act of 1900 is joining the fight to save endangered tonewoods.
Quotes from Rick Nelson taken in conversation, March, 2010.
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