“Our goal was simple: build a guitar too good to be true”: Designing new solidbody electrics is one of the biggest challenges in guitar building – but Eastman has made it look easy yet again with the FullerTone

NAMM 2025: At last year’s NAMM, Eastman stole the show by unveiling the D’Ambrosio range – a collection of high-end instruments built from reclaimed tonewoods that furthered the firm’s vision of what the future of solidbody electric guitars would look like.

Now, Eastman has returned to the spirit of the D’Ambrosio collection and launched the FullerTone range – a more accessible take on the absurdly desirable platform that brings all its key functional and aesthetic features to the masses.

It’s a rarity these days I find a guitar so stunning that it takes my breath away, but the D’Ambrosios did just that. Designing fresh guitars and new body shapes is one of the hardest things guitar builders have to face these days, but Eastman absolutely knocked it out of the park with the D’Ambrosios. Words could not adequately express my delight.

The only problem, though, was that they were rather hard to come by (not to mention expensive), owing to the fact they were built from rare scorched Phoenix pine, salvaged swamp ash, and a list of other premium appointments.

That’s why I am absolutely over the moon to see that Eastman has launched the FullerTones, which are – for all intents and purposes – spiritual siblings of the D’Ambrosios.

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As such, the FullerTones retain perhaps the biggest component that made the D’Ambrosios such a key example of futuristic electric guitar engineering: the FullerTone neck joint.

Giving this new series its name, the FullerTone joint is an unprecedented two-bolt long-tenon neck joint, first pioneered for the D’Ambrosios, which works to deliver more tone, sustain and stability by offering three times greater neck-to-body contact.

“My challenge for this design was simple,” Otto D’Ambrosio, Eastman’s Master Luthier, says of the FullerTone. “To create a modular bolt-on neck system that performed, looked, and felt better than what is commonly seen on the solid body bolt-on market.”

Elsewhere, two of the D’Ambrosio body shapes have been recalled here – double-cut and single-cut – both of which add fresh options to a market otherwise crowded with all-too-familiar clones of classic designs, paying homage to earlier Eastman designs.

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I’d be remiss not to mention that the third D’Ambrosio shape, ‘Offset’, hasn’t been included in the initial FullerTone launch, but it wouldn’t be too outlandish to assume that could be added later on down the line.

In a bid to make the FullerTones that have been released more accessible, Eastman has honed in on a consistent spec sheet that offers less variety, but one that doesn’t compromise on quality or performance.

Each guitar regardless of its configuration comes with a roasted black limba body, roasted maple neck, 12” roasted maple fingerboard and that FullerTone neck joint.

They also come packing newly developed pickups designed in collaboration with ToneRider. Two separate stacked noiseless single-coils and a Soapbar humbucker with a goldfoil cover have been created for each configuration.

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Replacing the Lollar pickups of the more elusive models, the ToneRider pups look to cover “every sonic territory imaginable”, and can be tweaked through a familiar control layout of selector switches, and volume and tone knobs.

“With these guitars we have managed to break through various barriers without cutting any corners,” reflects Eastman’s Director of Fretted Instruments, Pepijn ’t Hart. “Again, everything is top notch, as we always offer nothing but the best. This one is for everyone, we feel.

“Our goal was simple: shoot for the stars and build a guitar too good to be true, too good to put down,” adds Eastman in a statement on its website. “The FullerTone Series takes our solid body electric evolution to a whole new level.”

The FullerTone guitars will be available in Moss Black, Ice Blue Metallic and Desert Sand. Official US prices are yet to be confirmed.

Head over to Eastman for more.