Ron Thorn shows off custom Acoustasonic Jazzmaster, featuring wood from ‘The Tree’
Fender Custom Shop Master Builder Ron Thorn has shown off his latest creation, a custom Acoustasonic Jazzmaster entitled The Trees, a name paying homage to the guitar’s unique set of tonewoods.
READ MORE: The Big Review: Fender American Acoustasonic Jazzmaster
The Trees is made from three special pieces of timber. The body is made from ‘Stradivarius Spruce,’ wood from the same area in Italian Alps that Antonio Stradivari hand-picked from to create his world-renowned instruments. While the area has been off-limits for over a century, some wood became available after a storm uprooted some of the trees.
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The bookmatched top is made out of mahogany, specifically mahogany from ‘The Tree.’ Standing 100 feet tall and with a 10 foot diameter, when The Tree was discovered in the Honduran rainforest in 1965 it presented a gargantuan challenge to loggers. They felled it by axe, but it tipped unexpectedly and fell into a ravine – one too narrow for it to be retrieved.
Over a decade later, The Tree was rediscovered, and a difficult rescue operation was undertaken. Its wood sports a unique quilted pattern – combined with its inherent uniqueness and the massive expense of retrieving it, wood from The Tree is some of the most valuable in the world.
The neck is quartersawn sinker mahogany. It’s a tree that had been sunk in a river for over 75 years, before being retrieved and dried. The fretboard is ebony, with a leaf-themed inlay pattern made from a number of wood species, in honour of the unique trees that make up the guitar.
Hear Thorn discuss the guitar and its building in Fender’s video below.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
