Variety is the Spice of Life

They say “variety is the spice of life” and I have to agree. I haven’t posted anything in a while so here is a potpourri of pictures. I have been enjoying a good mix of building and repair work as of late and have had all kinds of interesting instruments in for repair and customers come to me with interesting build ideas.

As far as the builds go, I got a chance to make a romantic era inspired guitar with a internal top or resonating plate (I’m not sure there is an official term for such a thing). It’s not a design that is common and I found it so very interesting as it bifurcated the air resonance into two equally strong notes. This is such a unique guitar in so many ways in that it uses Rickard Cyclone machines, a zero fret and an 18 hole tie bridge. I really love working with European Maple. It works wonderfully and the figure is eye catching.

The other build pictured is a lattice braced design for a customer. The back and sides will be Mediterranean Cypress and it has a new headstock shape as well. This lattice bracing was a sort of amalgam and tweak of things I’ve seen on other instruments. There are many different lattice braced guitars out there and I am hoping this combination of design elements results in something I really like the sound of and continue to pursue. In one of the pictures you can see the sled I made to cut the lattice with an expanding grid pattern.

New Bracing /Floating Ties

Voicing the guitar is a big part of the fun and challenge of building. I’m always working on “dialing in” or improving on the sound. The process involves understanding your materials, because every piece of wood is different, and then working with all the variables at your disposal. When you play with all the variables over time you get a feel for how each element affects the way the guitar sounds in the end. Usually, that means playing with the bracing pattern and doming of the top… changing the lengths and heights of braces as well as changing the placement of braces; making the top stiffer or more flexible in specific areas. Most of the time you are gluing the braces to the top itself to stiffen or discipline the top. This project pictured above was something completely different for me and I wasn’t very sure of what the guitar was going to sound like when it was all said and done.

I’m not sure what to call this at present. These “floating ties” are braces that don’t directly discipline the top but are one step removed as they are notched into the braces above and are controlling the braces instead of the top itself. It is adding some across the grain stiffness but in a completely different way than a brace glued directly would do. This guitar is thus so very different sounding than any guitar I have ever made. The guitar sounds very “open” with a warm treble and lush harmonics throughout and is still very balanced all the way through from low to high with a good sustain. In some ways it makes sense to me now. These floating ties allow the top to resonate more freely with very little added weight while still disciplining the top in a different way. Anyway, I’m enjoying the guitar very much and I think I’ll have to make a few more guitars with these superstructures to really see if I’m on to something.

Here is some video. Thanks to Ryan Walsh for stopping by the shop and recording some snippets.

This guitar is available and will be listed in the inventory on my website shortly.