Available is a 2008 Teuffel Guitars Niwa owned and played by experimental guitarist and composer Henry Kaiser. You can hear this guitar on multiple Henry Kaiser albums including his 2014 release with Ray Russel called "The Celestial Squid". It features an apricot matte finish with standard specs.
Henry has had a Tremol-No system installed in place of the SureClaw that the Niwa typically comes stock with. The small pin-sized screw hole inside of the tremolo cavity is likely from the older system and would be hidden if you were to re-install a Sure-Claw at some point in the future. With that being said, this is one of the finest playing Niwa models we have ever had our hands on.
This guitar plays with ease and has been well cared for. It is currently setup with a comfortable low action and a set of Thomastik 10-48 gauge strings. There is some honest play wear to the bodies finish with a few dings and scratches here and there. The stainless steel frets are still in great shape and have a long life ahead of them.
The Niwa is a unique bolt on neck solid body with a 25.5" scale. The body features contours that hug and follow the natural lines of your body. It truly feels like an extension of whomever picks it up. The Niwa is also an incredibly well balanced guitar design. The neck fits into a rounded out cavity that holds it in place so snug that there is virtually no play/movement at all. It is a very stable and brilliantly executed neck joint, that helps the entire guitar to resonate and sustain to its fullest potential. The Pau Ferro fingerboard has 22 frets. Each one being rounded and hand polished. The fret slots themselves end just before the edge of the board, this way they will never protrude during dryer seasons. It also just looks clean and classy esthetically. A roller nut from LSR guarantees unsurpassed performance from the vibrato system. Interfering resonances of the string section between the nut and tuners are absorbed / eliminated by the little rubber inlays behind the nut. The Wilkinson VG 300 vibrato on the Niwa provides great sparkle and twang like on a vintage Strat but with the advantage of a knife-edge system, which allows for up-ward bending. If the player wants to stop the guitars vibrato from bending upward, there is a wooden "trem-stop" in the back cavity that can be moved to but-up against the bridges sustain block to prevent upward motion. You can also use the currently installed Tremol-No system for this purpose.
Both the body and the neck are made from Red Alder. Only highly selected Alder timber with a high stiffness is chosen to be used for the guitars neck. The wood gets heat treated to increase its strength, both in the neck and headstock areas. As a result the Niwa's neck has much more stability than even a neck made from Honduras Mahogany. The incorporated 2-way truss rod supports the neck in combination with maple inlays.
Ulrich Teuffel- “One of my favorite tone-woods is American Alder. Not only does it produce profound bass response, it's also got this low-midrange attack which is responsible for that very well-known Hendrix sound. The Niwa's body and neck are made of American Red Alder.All components such as the neck, strap pin, pots, pickups etc, are built in with stainless steel screws. While they are viewable the screws are hand polished. The threads rest in metal thread inserts which are mounted into the body. You will never find a loose strap pin screw.”
There are many fine and well thought out details throughout Ulrich's builds that are easy to miss, but they are what make these instruments so much more than the sum of their parts. For example the Red Alder control cavity also acts as a sound chamber, allowing the guitar to feedback in a musical and controllable way, with an acoustic-like presence to chords and sustained notes. While beautiful and extremally well built, the Niwa is in the end an electric guitar and the tone of this instrument leaves nothing to be desired. Ulrich has incorporated three of his Split-Coil pickups into this guitar. One hot Split-Coil in the bridge position and two medium wound Split-Coils in the middle and neck positions. The neck and middle pickups consist of two offset wound bobbins. One bobbin picks up the bass strings while the other picks up the treble strings. Since both bobbins are wound in reverse they are hum cancelling in all positions. The tone of these pickups is very guttural, but much richer than a Strat-type of single coil or similar. The same pickup is placed in the bridge position, however its tone is much hotter and it uses a different winding pattern. Alnico 5 magnets are used in the middle and neck while the bridge utilizes Alnico 8 magnets for a fatter more aggressive tone. The pickups are sealed against microphonics when using them with high gain or at loud volumes. As a matter of fact, all of the electrotonic compartments are shielded to keep out magnetic and electric field interferences.
Reach out to us with any questions that you might have and feel free to ask for more pictures.
Specs:
Scale length: 25.5”
Nut Width: 1 & 11/16”
Nut: LSR Roller nut
Body: American Alder (Red Alder)
Neck: American Alder (Red Alder)
Fingerboard: Pau Ferro
Neck profile: Asymmetrical Soft V-shape .83” - .93” (Treble side is slightly larger than the bass side. Follows the natural lines of your hand)
Fretboard radius: Compound 13” – 17”
Fret wire: Jim Dunlop #6105, Stainless Steel, 22 frets
Pickups: Bridge pickup: Split-coil hot output, Middle: Split-coil medium output, Neck Split-coil: medium output
Rotary 5-way switch: This switch allows these combinations: neck / neck+middle / neck+bridge / middle / middle+bridge
Bridge pickup on: Use Push-Push Tone Control. The bridge pickup gets switched on by the push-push tone control only. This is an easy way to access the bridge pickup for a solo.
weight: 7lbs 5.4oz
String Gauge: 10-48
Case: Custom HSC made to Teuffel's specs and form fitted to the Niwas dimensions
