Pratley Classic D-SCE-BWS Sitka Spruce Blackwood Dreadnought Cutaway Acoustic-Electric Guitar

The Pratley Classic D-SCE-BWS pairs a solid AAA-grade Sitka spruce top with solid Australian blackwood back and sides in a cutaway dreadnought, handmade on the Gold Coast. It has a Queensland maple silkwood neck, an AA-grade Johnstone River teak fretboard and bridge, and an L.R. Baggs StagePro Element system. A Pratley moulded hard-foam case is included.

Spruce over blackwood

This is the classic dreadnought recipe with an Australian twist. The Sitka spruce top brings the quick attack, headroom and sparkle that make a spruce dreadnought such a good strummer. The solid blackwood back and sides add warmth and a thicker midrange underneath, much as rosewood or koa would. The result projects well in a jam and has plenty of bass, without getting woolly when you dig in with a pick. The body is 510 mm long, 400 mm wide and 117 mm deep.

Braced in Queensland bunya

Pratley's dipole bracing is cut from quarter-sawn Queensland bunya and designed to keep the top from bulging behind the bridge over time. The back is domed to a 4.5 m radius and bonded to the sides with laser-cut kerf linings. It is a stiff, stable structure built for Australia's humidity swings, and it lets the spruce top move freely.

Set neck, no Spanish heel

The Queensland maple silkwood neck is glued into a pocket of solid timber that tapers like a sideways dovetail and meets the body at the 14th fret. A two-way truss rod and twin torsion bars run right through the body join to keep the relief consistent. Leaving out the Spanish-style heel saves weight and clears the way to the upper frets through the cutaway. The fretboard extension floats just over the top, and the scarf-jointed headstock sets a good break angle over the 44 mm Graph Tech nut.

Chrome, white binding and teak

This model takes a brighter dress than its all-blackwood siblings: chrome 16:1 Pratley tuners made by Gotoh in Japan, chrome strap buttons and white ABS binding framing the pale spruce top. The fretboard and bridge are AA-grade Johnstone River teak, a dense, oily Queensland hardwood comparable to Indian rosewood, with 20 Jescar 18% nickel-silver frets on a 25.5" scale and 1/4" white mother-of-pearl dots. An eight-piece radial-grain solid blackwood rosette, a black pickguard and a satin nitrocellulose finish complete it.

L.R. Baggs StagePro Element

For gigs, the L.R. Baggs Element under-saddle pickup runs into a StagePro preamp with a volume slider, bass, mid and treble sliders, a notch filter and a phase switch for feedback control, plus a built-in tuner and a battery light. It comes strung with Elixir Phosphor Bronze Nanoweb 12-53s. Set up in-store by Guitar World Australia's techs before it ships to you, so it plays perfectly the moment it arrives.