Bourgeois The Standard Slope D

A vintage-style slope-shoulder dreadnought that is part of an expanded Touchstone series.

April 30, 2025

Bourgeois Guitars is adding to its Touchstone series of guitars with the L-00 style L-DBO and slope-shoulder dreadnought Slope-D this year. Both guitars are part of “The Standard” sub-series, and they expand the Touchstone offerings from the various square-shouldered dreadnought and OM models that were introduced earlier. Like all Touchstone models, these new instruments are built in collaboration with Eastman Guitars. Specifically, the tops are braced and voiced at Bourgeois’s Lewiston, Maine, shop, then sent to China, where the guitars are completed according to the same designs Bourgeois uses for its completely U.S.–made instruments. We already had a chance to check out The Standard L-DBO 14, and in this video, I take a look at the Slope-D with the help of San Francisco Bay Area flatpicking ace Jim Nunally.

Dana Bourgeois has offered slope-shouldered dreadnoughts for most of his career building guitars under his own name, and his Slope Ds are considered to be among the finest contemporary interpretations of this vintage design (check out our demo of a Style 35 built in 2019). Bourgeois has built Slope Ds with many different wood combinations, and The Standard Slope D is constructed with a torrefied Sitka spruce top, mahogany back and sides, and a ziricote fingerboard and bridge. The sunburst top looks great–Bourgeois specifically trained Eastman how to spray sunburst finishes to his specs—and the mahogany back and sides have attractive grain and coloring. Vintage slope shoulders often have simple appointments, and this instrument follows that tradition, with ivoroid body binding, a black-and-white rosette, and basic dot position markers in the fingerboard. The firestripe pickguard looks great with the sunburst finish, and the guitar’s open-back Schaller Grant Tune tuners sport ivoroid buttons.

I enjoyed spending some time with the guitar prior to shooting the video, and I was happy that I could get Jim Nunally’s impressions on the instrument as well. “This is a really good guitar,” was his immediate reaction after picking it up, before I even told him much information about the Slope D. In Jim’s hands, the guitar is a fabulous flatpicking machine. Its dynamic voice has the slightly “dry” basses and singing trebles that this style is known for. I also found that it sounds great for accompaniment-style strumming, and it has a sound that would make this a good choice for anyone looking for a versatile accompaniment guitar.

As with other Touchstones, The Standard Slope D offers great value in a flattop guitar. Players who have felt like they couldn’t afford a fully U.S.–made Bourgeois will especially want to check out one of these.