Local guitar-builder Alder & Main was born just a few blocks down the road from the shop in Telluride, Colorado. In their condo's parking garage, husband-and-wife duo Jamie and Christianna Catchpole began experimenting with fine tone woods and exploring their own intriguing guitar designs. Now relocated to a proper wood shop in nearby Norwood, Colorado, Alder & Main have really begun to hone their craft. Using the finest materials and components available, each Alder & Main guitar is built by hand with the utmost care and attention to detail, right here in the San Juan Mountains of Southern Colorado.
The "Leslie" body is Alder & Main's own creation, and this wass the very first one built back in 2021. Leslie #1 features a comfortable, smallish-size semi-hollow body with a single cutaway. Constructed from a book-matched Quilted Maple top and a Koa back, the body is chambered on both sides with a precisely-cut Alder leaf that serves as a sound port/f-hole on the bass side. Because of this semi-hollow/chambered design and the premium tonewoods, Leslie #1 starts as a naturally resonant instrument, and that woody character translates nicely when you plug in.
Leslie #1 was set up with quality components to be a versatile guitar built to perform at the highest level. It features a bolt-on Birdseye Maple neck from Warmoth with a compound-radius Rosewood fingerboard and no position inlays. For pickups, Alder & Main worked directly with Arcane Inc. for a set of custom-wound Triple Clone humbuckers. These pickups are a faithful recreation of the original P.A.F. design, and they produce versatile, warm sound with smooth sustain and plenty of bite when you need it. Powerful, but not fire-breathing. Add Schaller Da Vinci tuners and a high-quality Hannes bridge, and the result is a great playing guitar that is hard-working and dependable.
This 2021 Alder & Main Leslie has been played and enjoyed, so it shows some minor signs of play and use. In particular, there's some pick wear around the playing area, and there are some bumps and bruises around the edge of the back, especially where it sits across your lap and around the control plate. The setup is excellent—low and inviting—and the pickups rip! It's cool to see and A&M guitar that has a few years on it, too. We love how the natural finish has aged and mellowed over the years, which really shows off the Quilted Maple grain. All in all, this is an excellent played-in, but gently-used player's guitar. It includes a tweed hardshell case.
- Body: Semi-hollow/chambered
- Top: Quilted Maple
- Back: Koa
- Neck: Birdseye Maple from Warmoth
- Fingerboard: Rosewood w/ Compound Radius & no inlay
- Frets: 6150 Jumbo Frets
- Scale Length: 25-1/2"
- Nut Width: 1-11/16"
- Pickups: Arcane Triple Clone humbnuckers w/ aged gold covers
- Electronics: CTS 500k pots, Orange Drop 223k tone cap, Switchcraft switch
- Tuning Machines: Schaller Da Vinci
- Bridge: Schaller Hannes Bridge
- Case: Tweedhardshell case