A nod to the traditional slope-shoulder guitars of the 1930s and ’40s and designed for brawny power, the Huss & Dalton DS Custom is a robust long scale sloped dreadnought with premium tonewoods and dashing good looks.
This storied wood combination features the pairing of wonderful and rare tonewoods. The back and sides are African Blackwood (Dalbergia melanoxylon), a true Rosewood that some say rivals the tonal characteristics of the famed Brazilian Rosewood. This highly prized wood was considered the ‘original Ebony’ in ancient Egypt for it’s dark black color, though it is not in the Ebony family. The top is a 120+ year old set of quarter-sawn virgin old growth coastal Redwood with shadedburst finish reclaimed from a Pacific northwest bridge trestle, that was air dried naturally for all that time in the natural ideal conditions. Not to mention decades of intense vibration from locomotives, which is perfectly ideal to help season and break in this tonewood. (Read more on this wood below). We custom ordered this with African Blackwood fretboard, bridge and headstock overlay to match, tied the beauty together with full custom figured Koa body, neck and headstock bindings and Koa solid ring rosette, and topped it with Gold Waverly tuners with Koa buttons. Adirondack Spruce scalloped bracing and Hide Glue construction under the hood drive will drive this train where ever you take it. The versatile blend of African Blackwood and Redwood make this build available top the player for a plethora of styles. The old growth Redwood reacts at the slightest touch for warm sweet easy picking notes but combined with the dense African Blackwood body takes a pick like a champ and will drive you through your favorite rhythm and blues, leads and flatpicking melodies alike.
Other features include Mahogany neck, Abalone Pearl 42-style snowflake fretboard inlays, zig zag back strip, African Blackwood heelcap, figured Koa wedge, Ebony pins, tortoise pickguard, 1 23/32″ nut width, 2 7/32″ saddle spacing and more.
About Salvaged Bridge Trestle Redwood
Throughout the coastal railways in the Pacific Northwest, large timber trestle bridges were used to span gulches, rivers and creeks. During the
heyday of their construction (which lasted until the early 1950s), Coastal Redwood was the material of choice due to its size and its natural rot /insect resistance. To support the large spans needed, some timbers were as long as 26′ with cross sectional dimensions of over two square feet. The trees used to produce this wood were virgin old-growth and several feet in diameter. As time has passed almost all of these railway bridges have been decommissioned. Luckily, some of the wood from these decommissioned bridges has found new life as re-sawn timbers used for instrument making and this is the source of the Bridge Wood.
Huss & Dalton’s Bridge Wood tops are sourced from trestles that stood in the Coastal Forests of Oregon for anywhere between 75 to 120 years. During that time, the wood air-dried in nearly ideal conditions. While not all the timber salvaged from bridges has the qualities needed for great tone wood, they have been able to select the material that does. These tops have very tight vertical grain and a beautifully even coloration. Tonally, they found these tops are equal to or better than the striped Sinker Redwood tops. Along with the excellent acoustic properties, this wood provides the satisfaction of being a 100% salvaged product! It took hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years for the trees that produced the railway timbers to grow to their impressive size before being cut. There are only an extremely limited number of virgin old-growth trees still standing, most of which are protected so this wood is a rare commodity. Once it’s gone, it takes hundreds of years to grow trees with the qualities needed to produce equally impressive Tonewood.
Includes TKL tweed hardshell case and Lifetime Warranty.
Free shipping in the continental United States.
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