Woods & Materials
This section explains the woods, hardware and materials that are used for Voyage Air guitars. Learn more about the individual components.

Pickup Type: TransAxe Series Telair Electric Guitar

CUSTOM TONE RIDER VINTAGE S-S Alnico

Rhythm, lead, chicken pickin’ and slide never sounded better! The Tone Rider Vintage Plus neck model offers warmth and clarity and enough punch for country, blues, pop and jazz applications.. The bridge uses aged magnets and is under-wound to retain the dynamic high-end that country players demand, without sacrificing the slightly compressed low-end that make Tele bridge pickups a joy to play. Rolling back the volume and tone slightly create a wonderfully open tone for combined rhythm and chord work. A grounded full size copper plated baseplate adds to the tone and completes the look and feel.

Pickup Tech Specs

Vintage Plus Neck
Model TRT1N
Magnets Alnico 5 Rods
DCR 6.8k
Inductance 1.9H
Stagger Flat
Hookup Wire Vintage Briad
Scatter Medium

Vintage 90 Bridge
Model TRT1B
Magnets Alnico 5 Rods
DCR 6.0k
Inductance 2.5H
Stagger Flat
Hookup Wire Vintage Braid
Scatter Medium
Baseplate Steel

Neck & Body Material: TransAxe Series Telair Electric Guitar

We use maple grown in the northeastern part of Canada.The colder climate in this region makes for a shorter growing season, which in turn results in a much dense grade of maple. Canadian maple necks provide a couple of significant advantages; the first being excellent frequency response and sustain. The second advantage comes from the incredible stability that these necks provide.

It’s impossible to discuss alder without making reference to the first CA made solid body guitars which first used alder prominently in the late ’50s and early ’60s. It’s a medium-weight wood. Alder has a strong, clear, full-bodied sound, with thick, rich mids and excellent lows. Its highs sizzle, but are never harsh, and it offers a wonderful amount of sustain. Alder is most often used on its own as a body wood.

Available Models

  • VET-1 Black w/ Rosewood neck and White Pickguard
  • VET-2SBB Sunburst w/Maple Neck and Black Pickguard

Neck & Body Material: TransAxe Series Belair Electric Guitar

We use maple grown in the northeastern part of Canada.The colder climate in this region makes for a shorter growing season, which in turn results in a much dense grade of maple. Canadian maple necks provide a couple of significant advantages; the first being excellent frequency response and sustain. The second advantage comes from the incredible stability that these necks provide.

It’s impossible to discuss alder without making reference to the first CA made solid body guitars which first used alder prominently in the late ’50s and early ’60s. It’s a medium-weight wood. Alder has a strong, clear, full-bodied sound, with thick, rich mids and excellent lows. Its highs sizzle, but are never harsh, and it offers a wonderful amount of sustain. Alder is most often used on its own as a body wood.

TV Yellow Finish

Started in 1955,This finish was actually more of a translucent mustard yellow through which the wood grain could be seen. The idea behind this TV Yellow was that white guitars would glare too much on early black and white television broadcasts, whereas TV Yellow guitars would not cast a glare yet still appear white onscreen.

Body Materials: Premier Series Guitars

Rosewood

Native to the tropical regions of Brazil and India, Rosewood is the tone wood of choice for the back and sides of high-end guitars. Noted for its depth of resonance, guitars built with Rosewood back and sides have a distinctive sound signature. Solid Rosewood affords an extra presence to bass notes and their related harmonics, giving an acoustic guitar a full, rich sound.

Fretboard

The Fretboard is the wood behind the frets of the guitar. All Voyage Air guitars use Solid Rosewood for the Fretboard. The Fretboard of all Voyage Air guitars feature easy-to-see position markers, so you can quickly determine your playing position as you form chords and notes up the neck of the instrument.

Bridge

The Bridge is the component where the strings attach into the body of the guitar. All Voyage Air guitars use Solid Rosewood for the Bridge. When used for the bridge, Rosewood provides strength and beauty to the instrument.

Saddle

All Voyage Air guitars feature a “compensated bridge.” This preserves the intonation of each individual string, so all notes remain in tune as you play higher notes up the neck. The Voyage Air Premier Series guitars feature a natural Bone saddle for the best possible tone and resonance.

Top Material – Premier Series

Spruce has characteristics that make it ideal for the “top” of an acoustic guitar (the part with the sound hole and bridge). Spruce is a straight-grained wood, and is very strong for its weight. In fact, Spruce was the wood used in early 1900s aircraft because it was very strong, yet still very light. For a guitar, this means a thin sheet of Spruce can be strong, yet easily transmit the resonance of the strings. It’s this top-wood resonance that contributes the most to the sound character of a guitar. Three types of Spruce are used for Voyage Air guitars: Select Spruce, Solid Spruce, and Sitka Spruce. All three make for a great-sounding instrument, and all have various considerations in terms of price, durability and performance.

Sitka Spruce is a rare and valuable species of Spruce that grows in the coastal rainforests of Alaska and Canada. It is widely known as arguably the ultimate tone wood for the top of an acoustic guitar and is commonly used on guitars where ultimate tone is the prime consideration, and price is no object. As used on Voyage Air guitars, Sitka Spruce is a solid wood and very thin which results in great projection, resonance and harmonics. This Solid Sitka Spruce is used exclusively on all of the hand built Voyage Air Guitar the Premier Series.

 

Neck, Fingerboard and Bridge: Transit & Songwriter Series Guitars

The Solid Mahogany used for Voyage Air Transit and Songwriter Series is from East Africa. Mahogany is noted for its strength, stability and warm rich tone when used as a guitar neck tone wood.

The Fingerboard is the wood behind the frets of the guitar. All Voyage Air guitars use Solid Rosewood for the Fretboard. The Fretboard of all Voyage Air guitars feature easy-to-see position markers, so you can quickly determine your playing position as you form chords and notes up the neck of the instrument.

The Bridge is the component where the strings attach into the body of the guitar. All Voyage Air guitars use Solid Rosewood for the Bridge. When used for the bridge, Rosewood provides strength and beauty to the instrument. All Voyage Air guitars feature a “compensated bridge.” This preserves the intonation of each individual string, so all notes remain in tune as you play higher notes up the neck. The Voyage Air Premier Series guitars feature a natural Bone saddle for the best possible tone and resonance.