(SOLD) Pratley SL Dreadnought Cutaway Maple/Bunya 2024 (New)
Pratley Sl Dreadnought, bunya/maple, natural satin finish, made in Australia 2024. The bunya top on this is a gorgeous piece: big wide lines with beautiful rich colours, bookmatched all the way out to the edges. There's some lovely tight detail on the Queensland maple sides too, it's very pretty in an understated. al naturale kind of way. The clever neck join and comfy cutaway mean you easily reach all the way up to the 20th fret, and the pickup system translates the dry, warm, clear tone nice and accurately. This is a great working player's guitar, as well as a friendly presence around the home.
Pratley Guitars kicked off in 2004, under the guidance of Martin Pratley, a keen woodworker with a background in pro industrial design. There's a few interesting things about the design of all Pratley's offerings. First, the neck: the idea was to get as close as possible to the feel of an electric guitar neck on an acoustic. It's a slim, round C shape, and the join is a set-neck style, so there's a block inside the body that's glued to the neck with a wedge style join not dissimilar from a horizontal dovetail. The upshot is that the clunky heel is gone, and you get easy access all the way up to the top frets. The top has a clever A/X bracing pattern too, so there's two long braces extending along the whole top coming together to a point near the rear strap pin. This allows for plenty of resonance and a nice open tone, but was also specifically designed to eliminate any swelling tendencies in the top and make sure that bridge stays nice and flat and firmly attached. They also use a bunch of environmentally friendly and attractive Australian tonewoods like Queensland maple, bunya pine, Tasmanian blackwood and Johnstone river teak. They're very sustainable timbers to use, as the trees grow to a large size much faster than spruce, rosewood and mahogany, which are old growth species that have to be shipped long distances to get here.
* photos show actual guitar you will receive *
Model: Pratley SL Dreadnought Cutaway (SL-DCE-MB)
Made: Gold Coast Australia, 2024
Serial: 012410776
Finish: natural, satin nitro
Body: solid bunya top, layered Queensland maple back and sides, dreadnought shape
Neck: Queensland maple, Johnstone River teak fretboard, 25.5" scale, 12" radius, set neck/wedge join construction
Weight: 1.935kg
Mods: none
Pickup: Fishman Presys II with Sonicore Pickup
Accessories: Pratley lightweight semi-hard case
Cosmetic condition notes: brand new with manufacturer's warranty. No major marks.
Overall: brand new condition (10/10)
Playing condition notes: Action is low, neck is straight, intonation is good. Setup with 12/54 Elixir strings.
Fret Life: 10/10, brand new