With its marriage of metal and wood, the EBG-6 Jigsaw Crook solves a puzzle of post-modern guitar design.
BY DAVE HUNTER
NEW & COOL
GUITARISTS CAN BEa notoriously conservative bunch when it comes to the instruments they choose to play. But when you push the envelope far enough, it eventually breaks through to an entirely new standard that many innovative musicians can’t help but appreciate.
Modern German guitar makers like Nik Huber, Frank Hartung, Deimel and Teuffel have exported their blend of craftsmanship and Vorsprung durch Technik to the acclaim of American players. Now EBG-Instruments of Dusslingen, Germany, is applying its own post-modern twist to the movement to make its eclectic rock machines something strikingly different. The EBG-6 Jigsaw Crook we’re exploring here marries tradition and innovation in several obvious ways, while applying elevated build techniques that aren’t fully apparent at first glance.
EBG-Instruments is the creation of Marc Locher, a trained and certified master mechanical engineer and technician, who still undertakes every step of the build process himself. Look more closely at the company’s striking “perched bird” logo — especially when it appears in a mirror-image pair at the Jigsaw Crook’s 12th-fret inlay — and a clue to the company’s full name is revealed: Eye’s Bass Guitars, or EBG.
It doesn’t take a particularly close look, though, to catch the dramatic departure of this guitar’s construction, found in the segmented wood “jigsaw” body sections and milled aluminum core. The guitar is appointed much as we’d expect a 21st-century rock warrior to be, with a double-locking Floyd-style vibrato unit made by Schaller, two humbuckers with satin-black covers and a 24-fret neck with slim profile. But the Jigsaw Crook is actually an EBG model intended for a broader stylistic reach, and Locher has put a lot of thought into making it as versatile an instrument as possible.
“The challenge for the middle part involved a few points,” Locher says of the striking aluminum core. “It should increase the sustain and have a fast attack, have a slim and ergonomic transition to the neck at the back, be designed so that you don’t have to touch cold aluminum while playing, and enable space for the individual components, such as pickups and electronics.
“It should be CNC-milled from solid aluminum, not cast
