Avoca

Construction

The body is an Australian Blackwood top on a Victorian Ash back. The neck is three piece Queensland Maple with Wenge fretboard and Figured Maple binding. Dual action truss rod with two carbon fibre support rods for strength and stability.

The neck joint is what I call a super-tenon, it’s one long piece that extends through the body all the way underneath the bridge, sandwiched in between the two body woods. This gives the sustain and stability of a neck-through design, but allows the top and back body woods to have more influence on the overall tone.

The top is carved for maximum comfort with no sharp points that could dig into your arm during a long set. The back has comfort contours for tummy and knee resting, as well as a deeply carved out neck joint making it extremely easy to access the upper frets. The neck, pickups and bridge are set to a very low profile making it light and easy to play.

Electronics

The pickups are a modern voiced pair of handwound humbuckers designed for clarity, versatility and rich tone with increased midrange. They are wired up for two modes, humbucker and single-coil. Using the Freeway 6-way toggle switch, you can easily between the pickups in humbucking and single coil modes, no push/pulls or mini toggles needed.

The master volume has a treble-bleed circuit installed allowing you to roll down the volume to clean up the sound and still retain the clarity and crisp highs of the pickup. The master tone is a simple tone circuit with an Orange Drop capacitor and is designed to roll off the top end without losing clarity. At its maximum setting, it can give nice jazz tones or singing leads without sounding muddy.

All electronic parts are Bourns and NKK high quality sealed and moisture proof components for longer life and resistance to corrosion, crackling or cutting out. I use a rear mounted Pure Tone output jack that has more contact points to the jack for more tone transfer and less chance of dropouts. The plug is inserted into the back instead of the top or side, staying out of the way during performance or while sitting down.

Hardware

The bridge is a Babicz Full Contact hardtail string through body design. The bottom of the saddles come in full contact with the bridge plate instead of just two small height adjustment screws, so the tone from the string transfers right into the body for optimal resonance and sustain. The height is adjusted via a rotating cam system that is moved via a grub screw on top. The smooth feel on the top of the saddles is great for palm muting, there’s no screws sticking up to dig into your picking hand.

The machine heads are Gotoh 510 premium 20:1 ratio for smooth tuning and fine adjustment. The Chrome plating and comfortable modern buttons give it form and function. The tuning stability is great paired with a GraphTech Tusq XL lubricated nut, designed for great tone and smooth string travel without catching or snagging the string during tuning or bending.