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Step Sister

Private Build

Koa

US $6750

Price includes a hard case and worldwide shipping

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BUILD YOURS

GALLERY

THE STEP SISTER, KOA

The Step Sister platform offers a number of possible variations, to suit the widest variety of musical tastes and playing styles, from the rawest rock to the most sophisticated jazz & fusion. Accordingly, her look will be appropriate for the player who chooses her.

Some players look for an elegant, even luxurious appearance, where the sheer beauty of the exotic woods is key. The Step Sister Koa model is designed for these players. She will offer the exceptional B&G tone and playability, but will also shine for the superior class wood selection and for some exclusive finishing touches.

The top is just extraordinary, made with a building technique we developed at B&G: the solid maple blank is recessed to host a 2mm overlay in Hawaiian koa, that ‘sinks' into the top, leaving just enough maple on the outer edges, for a natural binding effect. The solid headstock comes with a matching koa overlay.

As with all the Step Sisters, she can be ordered with either P90, Kikbuckers or Humbuckers pickups. The proprietary brass hardware is lacquered, to preserve its shine.

HIGHLIGHTS

Koa

Koa is a magnificently figured wood, indigenous to the Hawaiian islands. For this special version of the Step Sister, we embed the most beautiful koa overlay in our solid maple tops. The negligible thickness of the urea-formaldehyde glue layer perfectly bonds the koa veneer to the maple top, greatly enriching the look and the tone of the Step Sister Koa.

Headstock Veneer

To complete the stunning look of the Step Sister Private Build Koa, the headstock is overlaid with a matching koa headplate, making for one truly head-turning guitar.

Golden Era Lutherie

B&G Private Build guitars are hand-built using the traditional techniques from the ‘Golden Era' of electric lutherie, delivering a vintage feel, look, and sound, straight out of the case.

Traditional Glues

Glue is one of the critical elements in the building of a guitar. Traditional hide glue for the neck joint, fish glue for the frets, and urea formaldehyde for the top, all crystalize like glass when dry, creating a substantially thinner layer between the different parts, which allows for optimal string energy transfer -- significantly better than modern synthetic glues.

ONE-WAY TRUSS-ROD

Single, one-way truss rods are lighter, and require a smaller channel in the neck. This building technique also demands neck woods that are perfectly aged, plus accurate installation of the truss rod. Private Build B&G Guitars only use this specific truss rod design, for improved tone transfer and sustain.

Nitrocellulose Finish

The vintage recipe for creating the best looking, thinnest and most resonant finish, remains the best. Nothing compares to a perfectly sprayed and buffed traditional nitrocellulose lacquer. It is the only finish that ages together with the wood, becoming thinner with time, merging into the wood molecules, and allowing them to vibrate freely.

B&G Pickups

Private Build pickups are developed and hand-wound in-house, to ensure that specific nuance of vintage tone we wanted for our guitars. P90s, Kikbuckers, or Humbuckers, either potted or unpotted, based on AlNiCo magnets and 42AWG Lacquered enamel copper wire, are voiced to perfection. The brass cover is also integral to the tone equation, resulting in the unparalleled, airy, warm and organic tone of a B&G Guitar.

Brass Bridge

Brass is a beautiful metal for guitar hardware. It brilliantly transfers the entire frequency spectrum, without sounding too ‘metallic'. This is the reason why B&G manufactures the bridge by milling a solid block of brass -- yet another B&G exclusive feature.

Brass Tailpiece

The B&G solid brass tailpiece, either nickel-plated or lacquered, is built to resonate, delivering a world of overtones and harmonics, like natural reverb. Importantly, each tailpiece is individually hand cast. A piece of jewelry conceived to look just as good as it sounds.

Rule of 18

The vintage-sized frets are precisely installed on the fingerboard, using the historic "Rule of 18" (24 ¾" scale), to ensure the comfortable playability that only a vintage instrument can deliver.

Lead Time

Quite simply, every B&G Private Build instrument takes time. The guitar will need weeks to evolve from the assembly of different wooden pieces, to a unique, vibrant, resonant entity. B&G instruments are built to last more than a lifetime --- the 3 to 4 months needed to complete each one becomes insignificant in the guitar's history.

Enhanced Access

The Step Sister is all about playability. While keeping the classic 24 ¾" scale length, the neck joins the body at the 16th fret, and the fingerboard grows to 22 frets. Available in the Cutaway version only, it enables easy and comfortable access to the upper frets for the most advanced rock, jazz, fusion and blues playing styles.

Fast Heel

The neck joint significantly impacts upon access to the upper registers. The Step Sister sports a neck heel that affords, at the same time, the maximum transfer function of string vibration, plus the virtual disappearance of those vibrations under the hands of the player. This allows for the most comfortable reach up to the 22nd fret

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