Southern Silky Oak is an Australian timber from South Eastern Australia. Much of the timber used comes from the Cole Clark urban recovery program, where local arborists get the trees and milled down with Cole Clark's Lucas Mill. These mainly come from parks and gardens around Melbourne, with the odd street tree in there as well. It has a density close to blackwood but its elasticity and impact hardness is less. This makes it a bit more open, acoustically, than an All Blackwood guitar. It's used as a back and side timber but in the last year, guitars made from Silky Oak top back and sides have well and truly taken over. These guitars are beautiful to look at and have a really interesting acoustic sound. Amplified, they are excellent and they are dense enough to use for percussive players. These guitars have a cutaway, new 3 Way preamp, Abalone rosette and fretboard inlays, Blackwood binding, River She Oak fretboard and a hard case. The non-Rosewood version is made from 100% sustainable timbers.
Cole Clark steel string acoustic guitars are the only main stream acoustic to use a Spanish heel or integral neck construction. This means the neck is glued to the face along with the sides and the back so the neck is one piece all the way to the sound hole. On other guitars, the body is made then the neck attached, mostly with a bolt or dove tail join. Due to this method, the sound is unique. Cole Clark also has a carved top and back and uses a ridge system to join the sides to the top and back instead of kerfing.
Features
- AA grade Silky Oak back/sides w/ AA grade Silky Oak top & Nitrocellulose (natural satin) finish
- Queensland Maple neck w/ 25.5″ scale
- She Oak fretboard w/ 12″ radius & Snowflake inlays
- 44mm/1.73″ Graph Tech Tusq nut
- Grover tuning machines
- She Oak bridge w/ Graph Tech Tusq saddles
- Cole Clark PG3 pickup system
- Includes Cole Clark hardcase (tweed), Pickguard supplied in case