Cold Fusion

Decades ago in a Californian orchard, a farmer spliced a sprig of the fruitful persian walnut onto a hardy rootstock of native claro walnut. The graft took, bonded, grew tall and eventually fell. And from this fusion of east and west came the stunning back plate of Cold Fusion.

The guitar is itself a fusion of acoustic and electric, of old-fashioned craftsmanship and modern design; the result is completely unique. The hand-carved engelmann spruce top doesn’t rely on bracing to withstand the pressure of the strings- the neck and tailpiece are bolted directly to a solid spine, which runs underneath (but not touching) the top. The spine is responsible for transmitting the string load, allowing the top and back to be much thinner and lighter, and thus vibrate more freely. The sides may appear to be one continuous piece, but are laminated from three layers. This is revealed to great effect on the “sound ports”, which are really just a seamless deepening of the chamfered edges.

The neck is a monolithic piece of rock-hard Ziricote, requiring no truss rod or reinforcement. The custom-made Ezi pickup, fingerrest and bridge are machined from the same piece. The typical archtop tailpiece has been replaced by a short T-shaped unit, so the tuners by T4M can be mounted solidly, and with the required clearance for tuning. They have been custom designed and made in such a way that the plain end of the string is locked at the tuner, and thus the ball end can be held merely by a slot cut into the head of the guitar.

The acoustic sound of the guitar is louder and fuller than you would ever expect from a guitar so small and thin, but just to be sure there is a K&K piezo transducer mounted on the inside of the soundboard. This can be used in addition to the magnetic pickup for a truly special stereo amplified tone.