“DIY instrument making and especially Cigar Box Guitars are becoming very trendy in France, where I am located. A year after making one for myself, I realized the neck had bended and couldn’t be repaired. I decided to make another 4 string guitar with a truss rod and an American license plate as a sound board hoping its resonance will enable acoustic playing… and it worked. I use the antique furniture restoring technics and ‘savoir-faire” I have developed for over 35 years to offer good quality musical instruments.

As a guitarist since my teenage years and a huge fan of rock and blues, I combined both passions to create durable, fun to play license plate instruments.”

Philippe Fournier, luthier-créateur (APLG member)

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Sound Specs

ET.Blues guitars produce a resonator sound like a dobro. The metal US license plate acts as a soundboard and allows acoustic playing. Old license plates were made of iron and new ones are in aluminum. This will affect the resonance of the guitar.

ET.Blues guitars are set in G open tuning and can be played with fingertips or with a bottleneck.

ET.Blues guitars are all electrified equiped with a choice of pickups:

Standard or Flatpup pickup with volume and tone controls,
Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio brand pickups,
ET.Blues single coil pickups,
ET.Blues P60.

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Technical specs

Guitar necks run through through the entire body on all ET.Blues instruments. They are built using 3 different wood pieces (mahogany, amaranth, sycamore…) for durability. They are also equipped with a truss rod for neck adjusting and when changing tuning.

Fretboard is made of hardwood (solid olive tree, Brazilian Ipe, Ebony…) with a 650 mm tuning fork and a 12° radius.

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The bridges are all made of iron, allowing good transmission of the License Plate resonance.

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Wood species will vary from one guitar to another depending on wood supply. ET.Blues guitars are handcrafted in limited series and quality of wood species is chosen with very special care.

Guitar body is available in solid wood (mahogany, sycamore…) or in plywood veneered with precious wood (Burl walnut, Macassar ebony…). Use of plywood insured a better durability of veneer than solid wood.