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Every guitar has a story.

Strandberg

Boden

It started with a sore shoulder. A Swedish engineer built a guitar that would stop fighting him.

Sweden, 2007. Ola Strandberg runs software for a biotech company, and his evenings with the guitar keep ending the same way: sore shoulders, a bent wrist, a neck diving toward the floor. So after hours, in the company’s basement workshop, he starts building one that won’t do that.

Introduced
2014
Type
Solidbody electric
Class
Production
Read the story · 3 min

All guitarsMore Strandberg

Strandberg Boden Prog NX 6 headless guitar in green quilted burst with two humbuckers and tremolo, isolated on white
Photo: Auge=mit / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0Boden Prog NX 6 in Earth Green, cut out on a white background; a Prog variant with tremolo, not the Boden Original hardtail in the specs table.

The short version

  1. 2007

    The basement guitar

    Ola Strandberg builds his first guitar in a workshop under the office.

  2. 2010

    Made to Measure

    The first Bodens are built one at a time in Sweden, to order.

  3. 2012

    The neck

    The EndurNeck is patented and the company is founded.

  4. 2014

    A factory batch

    The first mass-produced Bodens are finished late in the year. One company page says 2015.

  5. 2015

    Quitting the day job

    Ola leaves software that spring. Plini’s signature model arrives.

  6. 2017

    Indonesia

    The main Boden line moves to the Cort factory in Indonesia.

  7. 2024

    The Essential

    A cheaper Boden, straight scale, launches at $999.

  8. 2025

    N2

    An arched top, titanium in the neck, and new bridge hardware.

Side A

A1

Evenings that ended in sore shoulders

Most guitars ask you to adjust to them. You get used to the weight on your shoulder, the neck that drops when you let go, the wrist bent around the back of a round neck. That’s just playing guitar, everybody says.

Ola Strandberg didn’t accept that. He was a mechanical engineer who ran the software side of a biotech company in Sweden, not a luthier, and his evenings of playing kept ending with sore shoulders. In 2007, in the basement workshop at his office, he built his first guitar to see if he could fix it.

He could. Then he kept going.

A2

The neck is the invention

The thing people notice first is that there’s no headstock. The thing that actually matters is the neck.

Round necks make your thumb and wrist wrap around a curve. In 2012 Ola patented the EndurNeck, which isn’t round at all. It’s made of flat planes, shaped like a lopsided trapezoid, with a slight twist along its length. He borrowed ideas from twisted bass necks and worked out the trapezoid with a builder named Rick Toone. Part of the grip came from a TV remote he had at home.

On a guitar it means your thumb rests on a flat face, and your wrist stays straighter all the way up and down. That same year he started the company, spelled in lowercase with a star: .strandberg*.

A3

Headless for its own reasons

Yes, he knew about Steinberger. One of his early builds even used licensed Steinberger hardware on a Strat-type body. Then he designed his own bridge-and-tuner system, other builders asked to buy it, and it became the EGS hardware the guitars still use.

But this isn’t the old graphite paddle with a new coat of paint. The Boden is wood. The Original has a chambered swamp ash body with a maple top, a bolt-on neck, 24 stainless frets, and fanned frets on most six-strings, so the low strings are a little longer and tighter and the high ones a little slinkier. One reviewer called the body a “Dali-draws-a-puddle-like shape,” which is fair. The headstock came off because it added weight and made the neck dive, not because anyone was chasing a material.

I sometimes say that other people make guitars without headstocks, while we make headless guitars.

That’s Ola. What he means is that the missing headstock isn’t the gimmick. It’s the starting point for a guitar built around the person holding it.

Flip the record · By the numbers

  • 2007

    The year of the first basement build. The company didn’t exist until 2012.

  • 25"–25.5"

    The fanned scale on most six-strings. Longer for the low strings, shorter for the high ones.

  • 5.1–5.5 lbs

    What a current Boden Original weighs, depending on who put it on the scale.

  • $999

    Launch price of the Boden Essential in 2024, the cheapest Boden yet.

Side B

B1

From one at a time to a factory

The name Boden was on guitars before there was a factory. From 2010 they were built one at a time in Sweden as Made to Measure orders. Then came licensed and custom-shop runs in Ohio, Illinois, and back in Sweden.

“In late 2014 the first mass-produced batch was done,” Ola said. “In the spring of 2015 I quit my day job.” That first batch had gone to Japan in the fall of 2014. One of the company’s own pages dates that first production line to 2015, so take your pick. By 2017 the main Bodens were being built by Cort in Indonesia. A cheaper straight-scale Essential followed in 2024, and in 2025 the N2 added an arched top and titanium in the neck.

B2

The first customers

Tosin Abasi of Animals as Leaders was one of the very first customers. One of his early Made to Measure guitars was built for the open C# tuning of “Physical Education.” His bandmate Javier Reyes got one too. Misha Mansoor of Periphery had a US Custom Shop Boden 6 that the company calls “the first one to come off the production line.”

Then there’s Allan Holdsworth, the kind of player every builder quietly hopes will call. He tried a Strandberg in 2012 and got a neck-through Boden 6 in 2013, and he played it so hard the shop had to take it back for some care.

B3

Built to fit, whoever you are

Plini had played Ibanez for nine or ten years when he tried Aaron Marshall’s Strandberg after an Intervals show in Berlin. His verdict: “the most comfortable guitar of all time.” (He’s also told it as finding a Boden 7 backstage. Both versions are out there.) He had a signature model by 2015.

Jacob Collier has a five-string Boden tuned D A E A D, and by 2025 the five was outselling the six. Guthrie Govan played a custom-shop Boden 8 on tour with Hans Zimmer.

And then there’s Devin Townsend, who doesn’t like lightweight guitars. For his Ziltoid shows at the Royal Albert Hall, Strandberg built him a Boden 8 in solid, extra-heavy mahogany. Same shape, same neck, and none of the lightness. That was never really the point. Ola started out building a guitar for his own sore shoulders. Devin got one built for his.

Put this on

You’ve read about it. Now hear it. Here’s what this guitar sounds like, and what to listen for.

  1. Devin Townsend Project ·

    Ziltoid, live at the Royal Albert Hall

    Strandberg built Devin a solid, deliberately heavy mahogany Boden 8 for his Ziltoid shows at the Royal Albert Hall.

    Watch it on YouTube

The cast

The people, and the specific guitars, that made the legend.

  • 2007

    Ola Strandberg

    Designer

    A mechanical engineer who ran software by day. Built the first one after hours to fix his own aching shoulders.

  • 2010s

    Tosin Abasi

    Early Made to Measure Boden

    One of the very first customers. His guitar was built for the open C# tuning of “Physical Education.”

  • 2010s

    Misha Mansoor

    US Custom Shop Boden 6

    Periphery. His US Custom Shop Boden 6 was “the first one to come off the production line.”

  • 2013

    Allan Holdsworth

    Made to Measure Boden 6

    Tried a Strandberg in 2012 and got a neck-through Boden 6 the next year. Played it so hard it went back to the shop for care.

  • 2015

    Plini

    Signature Boden

    Called the Boden “the most comfortable guitar of all time” after trying one in Berlin.

  • Devin Townsend

    Heavy mahogany Boden 8

    Doesn’t like lightweight guitars, so his is solid and extra heavy. Still a Boden.

Liner notes

Specs, construction, rarity, value, and every source we used.

Chambered swamp ash, a trapezoid EndurNeck, and tuners at the bridge — Strandberg’s Boden, not Steinberger’s 1984 graphite paddle.

Body
Chambered swamp ash; solid maple with flamed maple veneer; N2 curved top, sculpted back. Indonesia.
Neck
Bolt-on roasted maple, titanium-reinforced EndurNeck. Guitar World also prints birdseye roasted maple for the neck. Mix flagged.
Fingerboard
Roasted birdseye maple, 20" (508 mm) radius, 24 stainless plus zero fret, Luminlay green. Mix flagged.
Scale
25"–25.5" multi-scale (635–648 mm). Mix flagged.
Pickups
Two .strandberg* POWR:D by Fishman humbuckers
Hardware
EGS Arc multi-scale hardtail and string lock; tuners at the bridge
Electronics
Master volume, master tone with push/pull voice select, 5-way
Finish
Acrylic satin. Black Denim Burst; Sunset Coral Burst.
Nut
Plastic moulded; 42 mm / 1.65". Mix flagged.
Open the full research fileConstruction details, the complete player record, production numbers, dated value estimates, and sources

Current typical = Boden Original N2.6 (PT Cort, Indonesia; Guitar Summit, 26 September 2025). Guitar World launch $2,499; weight 2.3 kg / 5.1 lbs. Ish Guitars 5.3 and 5.5 lbs. Mix flagged. Factory copy: POWR:D as “passive tone and dynamics” with selectable voicings. Sweetwater subtitle: “Active.” Mix flagged. Standard N2 is solid basswood, Seymour Duncan Pegasus/Sentient. Essential is meranti, straight 25.5". 7- and 8-string, Prog / Metal / Fusion / Classic, and the Plini and Collier signatures stay on this plate as Bodens, not second slugs. Sälen is a different Strandberg shape. Boden Bass is a bass. Varberg and Masvidalien are other names. No Gibson SKU.

Construction

The job was an electric that would not fight the player. Heavy bodies, neck dive, a wrist bent around a round neck — Ola Strandberg told Guitar World (Matt Owen) those were the evenings that ended in sore shoulders. Mechanical engineer, Uppsala, not a shop luthier. What he built is a chambered wood headless with a trapezoid neck. It is not Ned Steinberger’s graphite paddle.

2007. First guitar, in the basement workshop of the biotech company where he ran software. Wikipedia, citing Owen: Steinberger’s 1980s hardware had his attention; he wanted better balance and a straighter wrist. Owen: the third build put Hohner Steinberger-licensed hardware on a Strat-type body. Then his own hardware. Project Guitar. Other builders asked to buy it. Ergonomic Guitar System.

2012. EndurNeck. Flat planes, asymmetrical trapezoid, a slight helical twist. Owen: Jerome Little’s twisted bass necks, Lace’s Helix, a collaboration with Rick Toone on the trapezoid. Guitar World (Phil Weller, 28 May 2025): a TV remote at home was part of the grip. Patent on that profile. Company that year, stylized .strandberg*. He still needed a factory.

The name was already on guitars. Factory NX Concept: first Made to Measure Bodens 2010, Sweden. Factory support (15 August 2022): Boden 7 and 8 on license at Strictly 7, Ohio, 2012–2013 — license revoked. Washburn Custom Shop, Illinois, 2013–mid-2015. Swedish Custom Shop 2015–2018, alongside MTM. Small rooms. This silhouette.

2014 is when it becomes a production guitar. Owen, quoting Ola: “In late 2014 the first mass-produced batch was done. In the spring of 2015 I quit my day job.” Factory support: Boden OS, 2014–2017, World Musical Instruments in Korea or Yako in China. NX Concept copy dates that first production line 2015. Keep both. Ola (YouTube Episode 16, 15 October 2020): first batch to Japan, fall 2014. NAMM 2014 (Guitar Messenger): Boden 6 added to 7 and 8; Per Nilsson’s Singularity as the first production non-chambered, pickguard, 27-fret. This plate starts in 2014. MTM and the Ohio 7/8s are the door, not a second slug.

What you get is almost the opposite of a Steinberger GL. Chambered swamp ash on the Original, maple cap, bolt-on EndurNeck, 24 stainless, zero fret, multi-scale on most sixes (25"–25.5"), tuners and string lock in an EGS bridge. Luminlay dots. A body MusicRadar (Phil Weller) called a “Dali-draws-a-puddle-like shape.” Headless because the headstock was weight and dive, not because graphite was the point. Ola, to Owen: “I sometimes say that other people make guitars without headstocks, while we make headless guitars.”

Not a Steinberger GL (steinberger-gl). Brooklyn, then Newburgh. One-piece graphite paddle, phenolic board, EMG 81/60, TransTrem or hardtail, 1984. This is Uppsala design, chambered wood, EndurNeck, EGS. Same missing headstock. Different factory, different material, different neck, different job. Eddie’s #3340 and Gilmour’s GL3T stay on that plate.

Not Sälen. Tele-ish Strandberg, another shape. Govan’s pub Sälen is that guitar. Not the Boden Bass. Not Varberg — CreativeLive, 2015: a layered concept he folded back onto the Boden platform rather than serialize.

2016: Boden J, Dyna Gakki. Factory: no longer exported outside Japan. Later J Artisan / Nick Sugimoto, limited. 2017: Original, Prog, Fusion, Metal to Strandberg’s own line at PT Cort, Indonesia (factory support, 22 November 2023; Guitar World, Amit Sharma, 14 June 2024). NX is the next carve: heel, arm cut, EGS Rev 7. 2024 Winter NAMM: Essential, meranti, straight 25.5", launch $999. 26 September 2025, Guitar Summit: N2 — arched top, titanium in the EndurNeck, EGS Arc, POWR:D by Fishman on Original.

Classic vs current: 2014 OS — Korean or Chinese serial, the first mass Boden — against an Original N2.6 you can order from Indonesia in 2026. Same silhouette. Different factory, different neck rods, different pickups.

Players

Do not recruit Sälen-only or Boden Bass players as if they were this guitar. Do not hang a Steinberger GL here. Holdsworth’s later Carvin/Kiesel headless is another guitar.

Tosin Abasi (Animals as Leaders). Factory family page: one of the first customers. Made to Measure #8 for the open C# in “Physical Education”; later #17, an early Strictly 7 sample; Swedish Custom Shop after that. Named objects.

Javier Reyes (Animals as Leaders). Factory: Made to Measure #63, beside Tosin.

Misha Mansoor (Periphery). Factory: Made to Measure #23 for a couple of tours, and a US Custom Shop Boden 6 — “the first one to come off the production line.”

Allan Holdsworth. Factory: tested his first Strandberg in 2012; True Temperament Made to Measure neck-through Boden 6 in 2013, played hard enough that the shop went back for TLC. The dream customer. His Steinberger GL2T stays on the GL plate.

Plini. MusicRadar / Total Guitar (Rob Laing, 7 March 2019): Ibanez for nine or ten years; saw Chris Letchford, Tosin, Misha on Strandbergs; tried Aaron Marshall’s after an Intervals show in Berlin — “the most comfortable guitar of all time.” Signature 2015, paired with Paul Masvidal’s. Later Prog NX 6 and Neck-Thru Black (Guitar World, 28 March 2022). Guitar World (14 October 2025) also has him finding a Boden 7 backstage after Intervals. Keep both tellings. Do not flatten them into one undocumented object.

Jacob Collier. Guitar World (Matt Owen, 6 March 2025): Boden JC Djesse, five strings, D A E A D, after a 2021 run-in with a Strandberg while working with Arch Echo. NAMM 2025: the five-string outselling the six. Still a Boden.

Devin Townsend. Factory: solid, extra-heavy mahogany US Custom Shop Boden 8 for the Ziltoid shows at the Royal Albert Hall. He does not like lightweight guitars. This one is still this silhouette.

Guthrie Govan. Factory: US Custom Shop True Temperament Boden 8 on Hans Zimmer Live. London pubs also put him on Boden Fusion — and on Sälen, which stays off.

Also known to play stays last and short. Guitar World Essential review laundry list: Per Nilsson (Singularity), Sarah Longfield, Charlie Griffiths of Haken. Factory family page: Griffiths a long-time player alongside Richard Henshall. None invented.

Rarity

You can buy a new Boden tomorrow. Essential, Standard N2, Original N2, Prog / Metal / Fusion / Classic, and living signatures all coexist at PT Cort. J Artisan is the limited current Japanese line. It is not vintage rare.

Strandberg does not publish Boden unit totals. None invented. Serials date a guitar. They don’t count a year. That is why a first-year OS census is unknown, not the chapter.

What is actually thinner: 2010–2018 Made to Measure; the Ohio Strictly 7 Boden 7/8s; Washburn Custom Shop 2013–mid-2015; first-batch OS to Japan, late 2014; Swedish Custom Shop. Tosin’s #8 and #17, Reyes’s #63, Mansoor’s first-off-the-line Boden 6, Holdsworth’s 2013 neck-through, Townsend’s heavy 8 are unique objects. They are not a used Original NX.

Value

Informal estimate, 4 September 2026. Not an appraisal.

Ask vs sold labeled. Celebrity lots are not-comps. No invented medians or factory counts.

New street. Essential: Guitar Center and the factory cart $1,149.00 this pass; 2024 launch $999 (factory press, 25 January 2024; Guitar World review). Sweetwater Black Granite sale $919.00 from $1,149. Mix flagged. Standard N2 launch MusicRadar: $1,799 / $1,999 mix, plus factory cart $1,899 this pass. Mix flagged. Original N2.6 dealer $2,499 (Guitar World; Sweetwater; Guitar Center; Musician’s Friend; zZounds). Factory US product page also printed $1,999 excluding VAT this pass. Mix flagged. Those are carts, not 2014 OS money.

Used modern. Reverb Price Guide, Good to Mint: Boden Original 7 $1,124–$1,700 (139 orders); Standard NX 6 Tremolo $872–$1,333 (54 orders); Metal NX 7 $1,167–$1,633 (41 orders). Original NX 6 USD widget did not print a clean band in the static fetch this pass. Named asks, not hammers: 2019 Original 6 $1,475; 2017 Original 6 ended $1,438.79. Do not average those with the Original 7 sold band.

Vintage / collectible. This is a living production guitar, not a 1954 market. Early MTM and Custom Shop trade as used modern-plus. Reverb Custom Shop Boden 8 $2,141–$3,372 (22 orders). Holdsworth’s 2013 neck-through and Tosin’s #8 are unique. They are not a vintage Boden.

See also

  • steinberger-gl — the 1984 graphite paddle this Swedish wood is not
  • parker-fly — another lightweight ergonomic, not a headless Boden
  • jackson-soloist — 1984 neck-through superstrat, not this chambered headless

Sources

Guitars this one gets compared to, confused with, or descended from.