MusicRadar

• Review

Flaxwood is a new name in the guitar world, starting in 2006, and grabbing our attention by using synthetic material for their necks and bodies.

Flaxwood employs, err, Flaxwood, a material conceived to offer a consistent alternative to good old wood. Flaxwood's construction process involves injection-moulding the body and its separate neck.

The material is "a proprietary NFC (natural fibre composite)," explains Flaxwood's Rick Nelson, "containing spruce fibre combined with a polymer binding agent… resulting in a man-made tonewood that eliminates the grain structure of the wood, resulting in an extremely tonally consistent material that's almost immune to changes in humidity."

"The backplate of the Flaxwood is designed to enhance the amplified and unplugged sound of the guitar."

There's more than a little PRS in the Flaxwood's look, although the top has a more pronounced arch, and the back is virtually flat save for a slight curve over the removable backplate.

Undo the five Allen key bolts and pull this recessed backplate off and you can see the virtually hollow-style moulding, with an H-shaped centre block and five protruding lugs.

"In fine-tuning the tone, our luthiers came to a resonator-style solution to optimising its sound. The backplate of the Flaxwood was designed to enhance both the amplified and unplugged sound of the guitar," says Flaxwood.

While the body is finished in an attractive dappled brown sunburst, the moulded, glued-in neck has a satin black finish that you can just see the raw 'grain' of the Flaxwood material through.

The cream bound fingerboard looks like ebony, though it's actually Flaxwood too. The neck feels slightly asymmetrical with a steeper shoulder on the bass-side, a little more sloping on the treble.

It's an extremely comfortable, nicely mainstream, 42.9mm in width at the nut, 20.4mm deep at the first fret and 22.8mm at the 12th. With a Gibson-like 305mm (12-inch) 'board radius and a Fender-like 648mm (25.5- inch) scale it feels neither one nor the other.