The
Zachary Z2-T hand crafted electric guitar reviewed
The maker
Zachary guitars are
hand made by Canadian luthiere Alex Cisky. Alex started building
guitars because he just wasn’t happy with any of the guitars
he could buy and felt he could do better. He now builds about
one instrument a month in his home workshop, almost as a hobby,
since he has a full-time musical instrument business that brings
in the bacon.
Alex tries to make
it clear that he does not build custom guitars, every guitar he
builds is a unique one-off and built to satisfy his own design
inclinations. When you order a Zachary guitar you can specify
the scale length (any scale between 24.5 to 26 inches in ¼
inch increments), hard tail or trem, number of pickups and locking
or non-locking tuners. You can make some suggestions on the types
of wood you might like, but it’s really Alex’s choice
as to how the guitar eventually turns out. Currently he offers
five body styles; his first and to me least attractive, is a kind
of melted and stretched rectangle, there is an almost direct copy
of the old Danelectro/Silvertone single-cut D1 shape, that looks
fabulous made up in some of the wood combinations Alex has used,
there’s an almost Strat shape and a not quite so close Tele
shape. Finally there’s the Z2 shape that is the subject
of this review.
Pricing
Alex’s base price,
as of April 2005, is 2000 USD (previously it was $1500) including
a hard shell fitted TKL case and he requires a $500 deposit when
ordering a guitar. He offers a menu of options with associated
charges to add to the base price, for example a solid rosewood
neck adds another $100. With a shipping charge of $50 to anywhere
in the continental US or Canada and no sales tax this is still
a very good price for a hand crafted guitar of this quality. When
you add $250 for international shipping plus import duty and taxes
(around $150 for the UK) it’s somewhat less attractive.
If you order a Zachary guitar it’s best to get a clear agreement
of the options chosen and confirm the finished price in advance
since Alex’s current delivery time is around 12 months.
The Z2 design
Although the Z2 body
shape may not be to everyone’s liking it is sleek, flowing
and very striking. While some of the curves and horns may seem
quite extreme, unlike the B.C. Rich and other guitars that use
extreme shapes just for the sake of it, the Z2 shape doesn’t
ignore ergonomic comfort. At first the Z2 design seems totally
original and unlike anything else out there, but a little research
shows a resemblance to the Kubicki Factor bass. This bass design
has the ‘axe blade’ curve under the right forearm,
a similar elongated upper horn and a small lower horn. The Kubicki
also has the clever minimal headstock with the reversed tuners
for the outer strings. The Z2 isn’t a straight copy of the
Kubicki, but the influences are clearly quite strong.
Tuners on this Z2 are three-on-a-side lightweight Gotoh auto-locking
($50 up charge for locking tuners). Although the general principle
is similar there are no clumsy great Sperzel knurled nuts here.
The visible top portion or ‘cap’ of the tuner post
is drilled and threaded like a blind-nut and threads onto the
lower part of the post, which is rotated by the worm gear and
tuner button in the usual way. With a string in place through
the post, the action of turning the tuner button to tension the
string also tightens the ‘cap’ down onto the lower
‘bolt’ portion of the post, locking the string in
place inside the ‘cap’.
No wider than the end
of the fingerboard, the ultra-skinny headstock shape is made possible
by swapping the tuner for the E string of each set of three, over
to the opposite side of the headstock, mounting it in reverse
and then running the string around the outside of the string post,
instead of the inside. This way, all three tuners, on each side,
turn in the same direction for tuning, the auto-locking feature
still works on the two reversed tuners and sufficient space is
left between the posts of the top and bottom E string tuners,
to run the other four strings between them.
The Neck
On this particularly
Z2-T the neck is made from a sumptuous length of dark chocolate,
solid Indian Rosewood (Dalbergia latifolia). It is left
without a surface finish since the inherent oiliness of the Rosewood
itself protects the wood and allows the surface to be buffed to
a natural lustre. The neck is capped by an un-dyed Ebony fretboard
($50 up charge for Ebony board), fitted with super-jumbo frets.
Fretting is generally to a very high standard, with perfectly
rounded and polished fret ends, however bending on the higher
frets reveals some slight rough spots on a few fret crowns.
A heel-access, double
action truss rod is installed in a routed slot under the ‘board.
It’s a 24 fret neck, providing a 4 octave range, with an
extension of the entire neck running right up to the neck pickup
route. Five bolts/screws are used to secure the neck to the body,
with plugs of Canary wood let in to the back of the guitar, as
surrounds for each bolt hole. Alex started fitting hard plugs
to support the screws on guitars he made with softer body woods,
like Korina and this practice then became a common design feature.
Although not structurally necessary on this guitar it’s
a very nice cosmetic touch.
The extended neck joint
itself is very accurately cut and forms an extremely strong connection
between the neck and body. Smooth rounding on the back of body,
around the joint and running on into the back of the lower cutaway,
makes reaching even the 24th fret a comfortable experience.
Generally bigger in
length and width than most electric necks, the 26 inch scale allows
for a bit more fingering space among the frets at the high end
of the board and still doesn’t feel too much of a stretch
for first or second position chords. The board is wide, at 45mm
at the nut and 55mm at the 12th fret. This is 3mm bigger all along
than, for example a typical Strat, and it has a suitably shallow
12 inch to 20 inch compound radius to match the width. In some
ways the neck combines the chunkiness, width and heavy frets of
a Gibson Les Paul with the long scale tone of a Fender Strat,
but goes a little bit further in both respects.
The shape of the neck is a little unusual, rather than a sudden
transition between rounded and rectangular at the headstock and
body joint the contour flares out quite gently. This works and
is very comfortable at the headstock end, which is after all no
wider than the neck, but personally I would have liked the full
rounded cross section to have continued much closer to the body
join. At the seventh fret the neck is a smooth half oval in cross
section and, as with many guitars, this is modified into a slight
U by the parallel sides of the fretboard.
The real virtue of
the neck shape and design is that structurally the neck is one
single piece of wood with continuous straight grain from end to
end. There is no carving cutting across the grain and no extra
pieces of wood glued on to form the headstock. Because of the
straight headstock, string tension is largely compressing the
neck rather than bending it forward. This design helps tone and
neck stability.
Alex makes his own
nuts, he refers to them as ‘mission impossible’ nuts,
out of a secret material that he says eliminates string binding
in the nut slots, while preserving tone. At a guess this is probably
one of the engineering Nylon materials, such as Nylatron or Delrin,
that incorporate a lubricant and are intended for use in self
lubricating bearings. Although the nut itself is low friction
it would seem that this advantage is immediately offset, since
it’s followed by a trio of string trees to get enough string
angle over the nut and these add their own friction against the
strings. In practice though, tuning is very stable, even after
extremely heavy whammy use.
The Body
The body on this particular
Z2 is made up of five pieces of wood ($50 up charge for laminated
body, plus $100 for exotic wood). Two 24mm thick pieces of Soft
Maple, joined on the centre line, are used for the back and these
are capped by two pieces of Canary wood (Centrolobium Robustum),
separated by a central wedge of spalted Soft Maple, for a total
body thickness of 42mm. Apart from the smooth belly, forearm and
neck joint contours the body is left fairly square edged, with
only a small sanded radius all round. The degree of body edge
rounding varies from one Zachary guitar to another, depending
on Alex’s muse at the time of construction. The trem cavity
is left uncovered, but is immaculately cut and perfectly smooth
finished. The control cavity is capped by a recessed and tight
fitting, plywood plate, held in place by two small countersunk
machine screws, screwed into threaded brass inserts sunk in the
body. Despite being constructed of fairly dense woods, the body
is quite small and even with the heavy Rosewood neck, the entire
guitar still only weighs 7.8lbs.
The Trem/Vibrato
The tremolo or rather
vibrato arm ($200 up charge for tremolo bridge) is a modified
version of the latest Wilkinson/Gotoh VS100N two point fulcrum
trem. Alex uses a lengthened vibrato arm, 20mm longer than the
standard arm. In addition to the standard push fit in to the original
plastic lined collar, with its slack adjustment grub screw, the
arm has an internal thread that screws onto a bolt in the bottom
of the arm mount. There is a rubber washer at the bottom of the
bolt, which adds resistance as the arm is fully tightened. As
a result the arm is firmly coupled to the block, which is essential
for fine control and any motion of the arm translates directly
into a pitch change. The inertia block of the trem has been reduced,
from the ‘normal’ width of 13mm at the bridge plate,
down to about 6mm for most of its depth, rather like a Floyd Rose
block and for the same reason - a thinner block allows more vibrato
range. However the low mass of the block leads to the concern
that perhaps tone and sustain could be improved by using a block
with greater mass. Also the Wilkinson/Gotoh trems, in common with
the majority of modern trem bridges, use inertia blocks cast in
ZAMAK ( Zinc, Aluminum, Magnesium, Copper die-casting alloy ).
Casting produces the block fully shaped, with all its holes, in
a single, low cost, process. The original Fender inertia blocks
were laboriously machined from lead-free steel stock and were
heavier than today's cast blocks, with a lower damping factor.
There is evidence to suggest that these steel blocks are partly
responsible for the revered tone of the early Fender guitars.
The slight back angle machined into the neck pocket allows 5mm
of float height for the trem bridge plate. Combined with a large
trem route and the stepped block this provides an unusually large
vibrato range for this type of trem.
The two trem pivot posts are locked in place by small grub screws,
accessed through the same hex socket that takes the larger key
for height adjustment.
With two springs on a 0.010 to 0.046 d’Addario string set
the trem is finger touch sensitive and gargles nicely when popped.
The Finish
Alex strongly disapproves
of the thick, glassy, plastic finish used on many of today’s
‘furniture’ guitars, since he feels it strangles tone
and isolates the player from the organic feel of the woods. He
uses a resin oil and carnuba wax finish that doesn’t affect
wood resonance and allows the player to feel the surface of the
wood. This finish also happens to be very easy to apply by hand,
it doesn’t require expensive equipment or safety permits,
it isn’t toxic and it has a very low environmental impact.
It certainly helps to keep the cost of these guitars down, since
paint and polish is one the most expensive and labour intensive
operations in guitar building. The only downside is that it isn’t
quite as resistant to minor bangs and scrapes as some of the ‘armour
plate’ plastic finishes found on commercial guitars.
The Electronics
This Z2 has two, ceramic
magnet, Zach Attack pickups ($150 up charge for extra pickup),
two miniature toggle switches, a volume and a tone control. Two
custom made, lightweight, black-anodised aluminium knobs are fitted
to the volume and tone pots.
The Zach Attacks are
Alex’s own mini-bucker pickup designs, cast in solid epoxy
resin by Kent Armstrong, with the Zach Attack logo impressed into
the moulding along the centre of the pickup. Physically they resemble
the DiMarzio Virtual P90 pickups that Alex had used previously
on some of his guitars. They are the same size as traditional
P90s, but with the mounting screw holes at either end, instead
of between the pickup poles. Two rows of large, black steel, hex
socket screws form the polepieces and, unlike mass production
guitars, these have been adjusted for correct string balance and
height.
Attention to detail
is evident in the pickup mounting, as the two routes are very
cleanly cut at a slight angle, so that the top surface of the
pickup lies parallel to the strings. Brass threaded inserts, sunk
into the body of the guitar, take the countersunk mounting/height-adjustment
screws at either end of each pickup.
Pickup switching is
simple but flexible; the lower, two-way toggle, selects either
single-coil tapped or humbucking modes while the upper, three-way
toggle, switches between neck, both, or bridge pickups. Alex has
chosen to voice the two inner coils in tapped mode, since this
provides the best Strat ‘quack’ tone when both pickups
are selected.
Sounds
Six pick-up combinations
are selectable through the two miniature switches, giving three
humbucking and three single coil sounds. Although to be accurate
the combined single coil sound, which uses the innermost coils
of the two mini-buckers, is also humbucking, since the coils are
out of phase.
In humbucking mode
the Zach Attack mini-buckers do have something of the flavour
of P90s, although perhaps just a little brighter and not quite
as fat. With both pickups selected the two pickups are out of
phase and give an interesting, somewhat scooped sound with glassy
highs.
In tapped single coil
mode the Z2 gives a fair approximation of Strat neck and bridge
sounds and the combined single coil sound is satisfyingly quacky.
A good jazz tone is available when the tone control is rolled
off on the neck pickup in ‘bucker mode.
For quite a while Alex resisted fitting tone controls to his guitars
because he wanted to keep things as simple as possible (or maybe
no more complex than necessary) and relied instead on the treble
taming effect of the guitar lead capacitance when the volume control
is turned down. However his desire for the ability to obtain a
smokier jazz tone, when required, has led him to relent and some
of his more recent guitars, this one included, have a treble tone
control fitted where he used to mount the output jack. The output
jack has moved to the side of the guitar, slightly complicating
the design, since it requires boring another hole and the addition
of a jack plate.
All of the available
sounds are interesting and all very useable. The Zach Attack,
narrow mini-humbuckers, certainly suite the guitar, which, with
its 24 frets and neck extension, has only a limited space for
pickups.
Conclusion
If the Z2 body shape
isn’t to your taste then Alex offers the choice of other
styles. If you don’t like the headstock then you’re
out of luck because only the ‘Samurai sword’ design
is currently on offer (apart from the headstock found on the 8
string guitar and on some of the basses). This particular guitar
is one of the most expensive Alex has made, partly because of
the recent price hike, partly because of the top woods used, partly
because of the trem and tone control and partly because of the
solid Rosewood neck. For a handmade guitar of this quality it
still represents fair value for money.
One of the best things
about this guitar is the neck and the wonderful wide fretboard.
If you’re one of those people who are sick and tired of
narrow, restricted fretboards, built for people with pencil thin
fingers, then a Zachary is the guitar for you.
This Z2-T is an absolutely
unique, well designed and extremely well made, hand-built, electric
guitar. It looks great, plays very well and sounds great, a truly
musical instrument. There’s not much more you can ask for
really.
Copyright Terry Relph-Knight
2005-10-14
The names 'Strat' & 'Les Paul' © Fender and Gibson
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Z2 headstock
Zachary Z2-T headstock
- picture © Alex C. 2005
Z2-T Guitar - back
view
Zachary Z2-T back view
- picture © Alex C. 2005
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