D'Angelico - Excel SS Solid Black

Warm in the low end, punchy on the attack: that’s how the D’Angelico Excel SS, Solid Black, makes its first impression. The semi-hollow body with a central block, featuring laminated maple on the top, sides and back, features a simple cutaway 381.00 mm wide and 44.45 mm deep, finished in a solid black colour with a gloss finish. The 635.00 mm (25") scale length spans the D’Angelico Electrozinc 10-46 strings across a wide 406.40 mm (16") fingerboard radius, ideal for both riffs and sustained chords.

The three-piece neck, with a C-shaped profile and a gloss finish, is set into the body via a set neck and widens from 20 mm at the first fret to 22 mm at the twelfth. Its ebony fingerboard features twenty-two Jescar 47/104 nickel-silver frets beneath Split Block mother-of-pearl inlays, complemented by side inlays. A 42.86 mm wide Tusq nut marks the start of the fingerboard, whilst a double-action truss rod, housed beneath an Aluminium Skyscraper plate, adjusts the neck’s curvature. Three-ply binding on the headstock and fingerboard, and five-ply binding on the body, frame the instrument, beneath a standard headstock engraved with the D’Angelico New York and Excel Shield logos in mother-of-pearl, numbered on the back with the model name.

The gold-plated Tune-O-Matic bridge and the D’Angelico Stairstep tailpiece help maintain tuning, alongside the Grover 509 Super Rotomatic locking tuners, whilst the hardware — ebony knobs, lockable strap buttons — is finished in gold. The DA-59 neck and SH-4 bridge pickups, with four-conductor wiring and gold-coloured covers, are controlled by two volume controls, two push/pull tone controls and a three-position toggle switch, connected to 500k potentiometers and a standard mono jack. A five-ply Tortoise Scalini pickguard completes the body, which has no back plate. Model number DAESSSBK2GT, made in Korea, the guitar comes with a gig bag.