Benoit Lavoie specializes in acoustics, archtops, baritones, acoustic basses as well as violins, cellos, and double basses. He is a rare breed of maker who spans a wide range of both modern and traditional instruments. He will also occasionally make electric instruments, and his examples of electrics (both solid and semi-hollow body) are stunning, embodying the same traditional and modern design and construction techniques as well as design aesthetics that he applies to all his acoustic instruments. Often with form and function, one is compromised for the sake of the other, but with Benoit, he is able to do both without compromise. This truly takes a skilled artisan who understands that when making instruments, Art and Engineering can share the stage equally.
Both the guitars below employ Benoit’s Aluminum beam neck attachment. Made of aircraft grade 6061 Aluminum alloy, this beam is integrated into the neck and fits into an Aluminum receptacle in the body. There is a hex screw that allows adjustment of the neck distance to the body, allowing yet another way of setting action that is not possible on any other guitar. This is common on Benoit’s archtops and acoustics, but heretofore never executed on electric guitar. Also, the neck can be easily removed with this method.
Les Paul/ES-335 style. Semi-hollow body construction with an internal frame of cedar from BC Canada. 
Arched top of flamed Spruce. Neck is one piece quartersawn Wenge with an African Blackwood fingerboard. 
Pickup rings, knobs, switch top, and tailpiece custom carved from African Blackwood. 
Back and sides are Quebec Yellow Birch from Benoit’s area. Top and bottom binding of Wenge. 
Back of Quebec Yellow Birch 
Back of Quebec Yellow Birch. Neck is one piece quartersawn Wenge. Nearly perfect straight grain along the entire neck and headstock length. 
Closeup of highly figured Quebec Yellow Birch. Note the hex screw that enables neck height adjustment relative to the body. 
Closeup of highly figured Quebec Yellow Birch
Strat-style 
Figured Red Maple top 
One piece quartersawn Wenge neck with an African Blackwood fretboard 
Black chrome hardware 
Spalted Yellow Birch pickguard, custom African Blackwood carved knobs and switch top 
One piece quartersawn Wenge neck 
One piece Swamp Ash back. Note the straight grain, which is rare on Swamp Ash of this size. 
Closeup of back. The neck attachment mechanism is housed in the circular piece of wood above the trem cavity. 
Back with open cavity trem 
Aluminum beam neck attachment. The neck floats completely above the body, never touching it. 
Headstock