Local guitar-builder Alder & Main was born just a few blocks down the road from our shop in Telluride, Colorado. In their condo's parking garage, husband-and-wife duo Jamie and Christianna Catchpole began experimenting with fine woods and exploring their own intriguing designs. Now relocated to a proper wood shop in nearby Norwood, Colorado, Alder & Main have honed their craft. Using the finest materials and components available, each Alder & Main guitar is built by hand with the utmost care, right here in the San Juan Mountains of Southern Colorado.
Using A&M's Constellation offset shape, "The 16 Gauge" is the result of an experiment to hammer form a guitar body out of 16-gauge steel sheet metal. Check out Alder & Main's YouTube channel for a series on how this guitar was built. Yeah, it's heavy. Play it, and you won't care how heavy it is anymore.
The 16 Gauge sports a Righteous Sound Diadem Staple Humbucker in the bridge position and a RIghteos Sound Diadem Staple P90 in the neck position. With these pickups, you get the best of both worlds—articulate humbucker bite at the bridge and smooth single-coil warmth at the neck. The steel body is totally hollow, so this guitar shares some qualities with hollowbody guitars. But the steel lends a unique metallic character that is unlike anything else on the planet. Perhaps that's why Alder & Main chose an outer space theme for this one! With the distressed blue finish, it kind of looks like a spacecraft that just re-entered the atmosphere, bringing versatile rock and roll tones to Earth.
- Body: Hammered 16-Gauge Sheet Metal
- Neck: Warmoth Birdseye Maple
- Scale: 25-1/2"
- Neck Pickup: Righteous Sound Diadem Staple P90
- Bridge Pickup: Righteous Sound Diadem Staple HUmbucker
- Tuners: Kluson Vintage Die-cast
- Pots: CTS 500K
- Switch: Switchcraft
- Stap Buttons: Dunlop Locking
- Case: Gator Hardcase