2025 Fairbanks F-60 Sitka/Wenge Aged

Fairbanks F-60, S/N 0924345

The inspiration for this F-60, an all new model from Fairbanks guitars, starts with the square shouldered dreadnought acoustic guitars of the 1960s. The Hummingbird-style square shouldered guitars of the early ‘60s still enjoy a large following among players and collectors alike. However, as the 1960s moved towards the 1970s, cost cutting and manufacturing changes resulted in guitars that still look great, but sound somewhat disappointing. The effort here is to make a guitar that is as inspiring in sound as it is in looks. The Fairbanks F-60 succeeds on both counts!  

The headstock features an ebony headplate with the Fairbanks logo inlay in mother of pearl, a bracketed shield design also inlaid in mother of pearl, six Schaller Deluxe tuning machines with tulip buttons and an ebony truss rod cover. The scale length is 25 1/2,” with a nut width of 1 ¾” and a bridge spacing of 2 ¼.” The neck is a Thinner Soft “V,” with a neck depth at the first fret of 0.920” and 0.970” at nineteenth fret. The neck is Honduran mahogany and it is joined to the body at the fourteenth fret. The fingerboard and bridge are Wenge with three-way split parallelogram inlays at the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, twelfth, fifteenth, and seventeenth frets, and twenty one frets in total. The fingerboard is bound in Ivoroid and it has a 12” radius. 

The top is Sitka Spruce and the back and sides are Wenge. The width at the lower bout is 16,” the upper bout is 12” and the body depth is 4 ½.” The overall length of the guitar is 40.” The top has a three color Tobacco Burst with an aged finish and the back and sides are natural, also with an aged finish. The top and back are bound in Ivoriod. The top purfling is four ply Ivoroid-black-Ivoroid, the back is two ply black-Ivoroid and the center strip is five ply with a wider Ivoroid center strip. The rosette has a seven ply inner ring and an outer three ply ring Ivoroid-black-Ivoroid. The pickguard recalls the days when, to protect the top of the guitar, many enthusiastic players installed large pepperoni pickguards, often obscuring much of the top. This one is understated by those standards, but it will still protect on both sides of the strings. 

The new body shape, when combined with the choice of tonewoods and the great care taken in manufacturing combine to make this guitar a visual and sonic stunner. The low “E” can be sonorous or thunderous depending on your mood, but every other note is balanced across the fretboard as well, with a wide dynamic range. It will play sweet and softly or as loud as you need without breaking up.