Dreadnaughts

    The Dreadnaught style was developed by Martin Guitars in the 1930's and 1940's largely to achieve a louder instrument since amplification was not yet available on a wide scale. It has flat shoulders, a less narrow waist, and a slightly larger size. Ours are completely symmetric with no cut away. As guitars age, it can be observed they often become more mellow, their lows are deeper and their highs stay bright. This is due to a variety of reasons, one of which is that the wood ages and the instrument gets broken in. We attempt to produce a new instrument that has these qualities for far less than you'd pay for a 50 year old guitar. The photo to the left shows our basic acoustic Dreadnaught. This is our distressed blue finish, made to look like its been around honky-tonks for 50 years or so. This model has Basswood sides and back with a glossy Urethane finish for durability. The neck is Nato and fingerboard is hardwood such as Maple, dyed black. The hardwood fingerboard gives the guitar a brighter sound when compared with Rosewood fingerboards which are commonly used. Fender Guitars traditionally used Maple fretboards in many of their guitars to achieve their bright acoustic texture. The soundboard is Spruce, one of the strongest and lightest woods used in acoustic guitars. Our distressed finishes are done in water based dyes followed by several thin coats of Nitrocellulose lacquer. Our non distressed finishes are coated with stained Nitrocellulose lacquer followed by several coats of clear. We find that heavy finishes such as oil based stains or Urethane clear coats can suppress  sound and makes the instrument seem slightly dampened acoustically (although the effect is typically overstated it is a minor effect only). We use Nitrocellulose for its timeless beauty and its ability to age beautifully. As the instrument gets older it will develop the characteristics of antique furniture.

    A glance at some of the soundholes reveals a cylinder which extends into the guitar body. This is proprietary to Indian River Guitars. Suffice to say, it gives the guitar that 50 year old deep tone that mellows out the sound. It also helps prevent feedback while reducing dead frets and wolf tones often found in even expensive instruments. It can be orderd as an option as well as a shield for the single coil.

Our Dreadnaughts are produced as an acoustic/electric unless ordered differently (the blue dreadnaught above is acoustic only with sound projector cone installed). The pickup system is a single-coil magnetic pickup in the neck position with a standard volume and treble bleed tone control.  This makes the guitar reminiscent of the guitars used by the Beatles, Peter and Gordon and others in the 1960's. Our Acoustic -Electric is similar to John Lennon's guitar as it was when Lennon first acquired it and used it on several famous Beatles recordings from 1963 to '64, including Please Please Me, With The Beatles and A Hard Day's Night. There is no mistaking that classic sound.  The instrument has a more modern addition however, that of an optional passive Piezo film on the bottom of the bridge blended with the magnetic pickup. The purpose of the Piezo blend is to add some body harmonics to the magnetic response in an approximately 95% - 5% ratio. By using a passive Piezo film, body harmonics can include some of the plate and bending modes that under saddle Piezo cables can miss. This addition makes a guitar which is built for the blues since it achieves an almost resonator quality.

    All our Dreadnaughts are hand setup and inspected to achieve easy playability, keeping the responsiveness of a guitar like an instrument that costs considerably more than ours. The first time you play one of these guitars it will seem to come alive in your hands; try it don't take our word for it.

 

 

The 4 guitars above are from left to right:

 

 

 

 

We can do a distressed-antique finish in Indigo (blue-see above), Oak (medium brown), Crimson (red-brown-see above), Emerald (deep green), and Walnut (darker brown). These finishes are great if you don't want to worry about scratches on the finish, it looks like it's been around for decades and you won't fret if it takes another direct shot from your 3 year old and an over enthusiastic bar patron.

 

Out lacquer can be done in Vintage Amber, Tobacco Brown, Red Mahogany, and Cherry Red, plus any combination or design you want. Keep in mind that all instruments are sealed with several coats of  Nitrocellulose lacquer in either satin or gloss. Our soundboards are hand painted which means you will see differences from guitar to guitar but it also serves to give  your instrument character.