Industry Musical instruments Divisions Flaxwood Usa Inc. Founded 2005 | Founder Heikki Koivurova Type of business Osakeyhtiö/Ltd. | |
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Area served Europe, North and South America, Asia, Australia Key people Jukka-Pekka Karppinen (CEO), Heikki Koivurova, Veijo Rautia, Antti Vilenius, Rick Nelson, Ed Klein, Harry Orlove Products Electric guitars and instrument parts | ||
Namm 09 flaxwood guitars
Flaxwood is a Finnish manufacturer of guitars and instrument parts based in Heinävaara, North Karelia. The company produces the instruments from a natural fibre-reinforced thermoplastic through a patented injection moulding process. Flaxwood was founded in 2005 following a research project on natural fibre-reinforced thermoplastic composites led by Heikki Koivurova. A prototype was developed initially in 2003 with the design input of luthier Veijo Rautia and two years later Flaxwood introduced their first line of guitars. In 2011, they released a line of hybrid guitars.
Contents
- Namm 09 flaxwood guitars
- Summer namm 11 flaxwood guitars voima hsh demo
- Material
- Manufacturing
- Guitars
- Flaxwood Series
- Hybrid Series
- Instrument Components
- Notable players
- References
Summer namm 11 flaxwood guitars voima hsh demo
Material
The body, neck and backplate of a Flaxwood guitar are made of a fibre-reinforced thermoplastic composite called flax. The composite material, also known as Kareline FLX, was developed through a collaboration between Heikki Koivurova, an industrial designer from Joensuu, Kareline, a Finnish manufacturer of composite materials, and the then University of Joensuu. It consists of small wood fibres, in this case from recycled northern spruce, mixed with a thermoplastic bonding agent. The semi-liquid mixture is injection moulded into shape with the fibres set in a predetermined direction. This results in a uniform material with a density of 1,2 kg/cm³ (74906 lb/ft³) and that can be recycled. It is also impervious to humidity and temperature variations.
Manufacturing
Flaxwood produces and assembles their instruments and parts in Heinävaara. The raw material is provided by Kareline and the moulding operations are carried out at All-Plast’s facility. The parts that come out of the mould are shaped with the cavities, pockets, joints and practically all the holes. They are then assembled and finished by hand with tools that are commonly used in traditional guitar workshops.
Guitars
Flaxwood currently produces two lines of guitars; a regular and a hybrid line.
Flaxwood Series
The guitar models of the regular line come with approximately similar features and various pick-up configurations. The bodies are semi-hollow with a backplate and come with either a Gotoh 510UB hardtail bridge, a Gotoh GE-103B tune-o-matic bridge or a Schaller LP tremolo bridge. The glued in necks feature 22 medium jumbo frets, a 25.5” scale length and a 1-11/16” Tune-X Tuning System nut. Almost each Flaxwood guitar bears a Finnish name representing its main personality and characteristics.
Hybrid Series
The Hybrid series feature a flaxwood bolt-on neck with a European alder body. The models are available in two pickup configurations, either three Seymour Duncan SSL-2 single coil pickups or two Seymour Duncan humbuckers, a SH-14N and a SH-2N.
Instrument Components
Since 2011 Flaxwood has launched a line of components for music instruments such as bolt-on guitar necks, guitar blanks and fingerboard blanks for bowed string instruments. Some of the components are used by other companies like the German violin manufacturer Mezzo-Forte.