Most luthiers today spend their time honing their craft, designing and creating guitars (vintage or modern) that eventually become a standard model in their product lineup. Once the standard models are set, much effort is put into streamlining the execution of production so that the guitars are built to exacting specifications, repeatable, and in a timely manner with some reasonable quantity. Then there’s the time needed for marketing, sales, business, etc. What time left over is usually devoted to looking at new designs and ideas. Sadly, this is usually a small percentage of their time.
Michael Sankey is a very rare luthier, even in the boutique guitar world. He still builds all his guitars by hand by himself, with no additional help. But he spends a lot of time in the design and engineering stage because he builds only one-of-a-kind, custom instruments. There are no standard production models. The analogy here is much like today’s modern skyscraper — there is only one unique design by the architect — as opposed to the same row houses in a subdivision. Or a painter who paints what he wants (or as a commission) rather than a lithograph of the same thing over and over.
This takes a significant amount of skill, preparation, and understanding of guitar lutherie to pull off. And all these skill elements are evident in his latest creation, Cold Fusion.
The Cold Fusion Archtop is a melding of many unique and innovative ideas into a modern archtop guitar. Some of its unique characteristics:
- Headless design
- One-piece Ziricote neck with NO truss rod.
- No metal hardware on the neck as the string ball-ends are at the neck
- Custom tuners which clamp the open string
- Extremely lightweight body — carved spruce top and grafted walnut back
- No internal bracing
- Unique neck connection to the body which relieves tension on the body
- Sides are one continuous piece around the entire body, made of a laminate of walnut/maple/walnut (triple-sides) for rigidity
- Sound f-holes pushed to the body edge
- Multi-scale 25-26″
- French-polished to allow more free vibrations
- Electronics: Custom Ezi pickup for the magnetic sound with K&K pure mini for the acoustic vibrations.
- All Ziricote hardware from the same wood piece for the neck, bridge, pickup enclosure, finger rest, tailpiece
The unique body construction and style borrows some from his previous archtop creation, The Tortoise — the way in which the typical f-holes are pushed to the edges, the continuous sides (all bent by hand — 3 times for each layer — with no mold), the multi-scale headless, and the chamfered body edges with no extra bling in purfling, binding, etc. These latter elements are aesthetic only (normally offered as extra bling for upcharging) and showcase woodworking — not necessarily guitar making — skills.
The idea is to achieve a very light weight with significant rigidity to maximize acoustic vibration. And at slightly over 3 pounds in weight, this is one of the lightest archtops in existence.
The sound is extraordinary. The Ezi pickups are crisp, clear, with plenty of volume. And a chimeyness with delicious squishy dynamic that sounds like like you’ve applied world class outboard gear. While the K&K pickup complements with a warmer, natural acoustic timbre.
Due to the small size and internal body volume, you don’t get the low-end response like you would on a larger guitar or flattop. This is just physics at play. But with the magnetic pickup and internal under-bridge pickup, the combination allows a huge range of tones — from typical warm jazz to Django-style to acoustic flattop response. All with uncompromised playability and stability.
There are only a handful of luthiers in the world pushing the boundaries of modern archtop making. Michael Sankey is truly one of them.
