At first glance, it looks 3D-printed but the Eagle from Spain's David Flores Loredo is actually fashioned from wood. The futuristic-looking double-horned guitar sports a body that's full of shapely holes to help cut down on weight, has recently taken top honors in a global design competition, and is now on its way to production. Let's take a closer look.
Flores Loredo has been working on the Eagle project since January 2016, and finally finished it earlier this year.
"The electric guitar design has remained almost unaltered from the 50s and 60s when the main guitar icons were created and reproduced without major modifications till today, and also they used to be very heavy," he told New Atlas. "The main challenge was to achieve a really new, attractive and lightweight design.
"With that clear objective in mind I decided to use a futuristic and beautiful organic-streamlined design language, which was for me a perfect combination. It needed a continuous effort in order to obtain a proportioned and elegant shape and to maintain an accurate balance between all its aesthetic characteristics: aggressiveness vs. elegance, fluidity and softness vs. speed and sharpness, futurism vs. classicism.
"The design started from concept sketches on blank paper and continued with Photoshop, Solidworks CAD modeling, rendering and fabrication with a CNC machine. Finally it was manually painted, polished and adjusted."
The sculpted alder body's shapely gaps lend to its distinctive look, with the solid parts home to three EMG SA single coil pickups, a 5-way selector, and volume and two tone knobs near the Schaller chrome bridge. The fretting hand is treated to a 25.5 inch scale maple neck that ends in a hollowed out head with Kluson tuners and scripted badge.
All those gaps in the wood mean that the Eagle tips the scales at an easy-on-the-neck 2.7 kg (6 lb), which matches the chambered Enlightened Series guitars from Michael Kelly. It doesn't have the classic look of those instruments, but Flores Loredo told us that it's very comfortable to play and boasts a "powerful and versatile sound born from a state-of-the-art pickup system, precise manufacturing and a careful selection of high quality woods and components."
The instrument's elegant lines and unusual look managed to attract the attention of judges in the latest A Design Award competition, with the hullabaloo generated from being named a Golden A winner leading to Flores Loredo now taking the Eagle into production.
"Due to its success and acceptance, we are beginning the production of the first units and they will be soon commercialized officially," Flores Loredo revealed to us. "Any guitarist in the world will be able to fly up to the stage with an Eagle."
Players interested in buying an Eagle can contact Flores Loredo via the source link below. We've no word on expected pricing at this stage.
Source: David Flores Loredo
