Official Luthiers Forum!

This one was built alongside the one I posted last week. It's a 16", not deep (2 3/4"), kind of a minimally embelished "journeyman" guitar with a bit of a Sadowsky feel (although all carved).
Lutz (from Shane) over big-leaf, with ebony fittings, 1 3/4" x 25" neck, graphtech nut & Gotoh cosmo tuners. The back is unbound. Kent Armstrong hand-wound "smoothtop". Colour is dye on bare wood with shellac & EM6000 over.
Thanks for looking!

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Dave
Milton, ON

Absolutely Beautiful!

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Another beautiful instrument Dave. I really dig the color. Out of curiousity, what is your final top thicknesses ending up? It's one thing that has me a little confused. In the Benedetto book he states final thickness for x braced tops to be .25" but in the video he says to rough it out to that. After you're done scraping and sanding it seems that you'd be closer to .187". So I'm curious what depth you use when you drill the inside arch.

Voluptuous curves, sublimely exquisite color - a thing of beauty!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Dave, your work is always beautiful and pleasant to look at: clean lines, great taste and beautiful curves. Are the sides a double bookmatch, or is it the figure?

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I'm loving the color you put on the Maple. I'm almost ready to finish some maple back and sides and was thinking of some type of dye to really pop the grain. What type and color of dye did you use?

Steve

BTW - you make some of my favorite looking arch-tops. I may need to call you for an apprenticeship.

Dave, that's just perfect!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I really like the un-bound back.

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

Beautiful, how are you doing your carving these days? What are your feelings on tailpieces-cello strap vs. hinge attachment, wood vs. metal, stuff like that.
Thanks

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Simply "WOW!"

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Stunning. Love the color.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Thanks guys...glad you like it.
Jason, they all end up somewhat different, but after finalizing the outside, I rough the inside down to about .270" on the duplicarver before getting to work with hand tools.
Laurent, I got the sides for this & the last one from a plank with some very interesting grain. No bookmatching (although it looks like it a bit.)
Steve, I do a lot of mixing/testing of various blends (Stewmac colours).....so many drops of x, y, z per oz. water..... before sparying anything. In this case I sprayed fairly intense red mahog. dye & sanded back to white (maple only) & then ended up spraying 5 different blends (I always seem to make adjustments on the fly) to get to the final result. I use red mahog, cherry, amber & tobacco.
Terrence, I rough carve on an unsophistcated duplicarver (Sargent's- MIMF) & smooth with a grinder mounted "roto rasp" I got at a woodshow (eg http://www.rotodistribution.co.uk/howtoorder.htm), before thumbplanes/scrapers. I've only ever used all wood gut attached tailpieces, this one with a pivot underneath, the last with a "violin saddle" for elevation. The biggest benefit I see in an appropriately made hinged style is the opportunity to expirement with different breakover angles. But I'm happy with the gut.

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Dave
Milton, ON

Geese Louise I look at work like that and it makes me just want to give up!

Beautiful!

I see you have been busy, Dave. I also like the color, but the flamey stuff is really a turn-on. Exquisite!!

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

was checking out your web, and i think your guitars look amazing, very classy and original.
do they sound anything like a regular Martin style steel string?
any link to listen to one a bit?
congrats!

Hey,Dave,
I know this is a smaller instrument, but looking at those sound holes, it appears that the top plate is plenty thick. Thicker than some of your others. I know you can coax the best possible response out of a top--regardless of where that leaves you in terms of graduations and thicknesses. I am sure you did that with this instrument. Having said all that, I am purely curious. Is this a trick of the camera, or of my eye, or is this top plate a bit thicker than most of your other top plates. To me, it looks that way where the thickness is revealed by the sound hole cut outs.

It's a fabulous instrument. I've already told you that on another forum. I'll say it again here. It's fabulous.

Patrick

That's just just beautiful Dave. I also like the color.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

The color is amazing. It lookes like its been there for 100 years or something. Just enough brightness to know its there. I just started my 1st archtop. If I can get anywhere close to that, i'd be thrilled. Something to strive to achieve. How do you like the Lutz top?

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Jason Moe
LaCrosse WI 54601

Thanks guy.
Bruno, archtops do have a different sound than flattop steel strings. To a greater or lesser degree, they can be punchier, more "bark" with less sustain, more fundamental and cutting in tone, with good balance, all depending on how they're made. They can also be very mellow, responsive to soft touch......quite a spectrum, as with flattops. Youtube's got lots of examples. Hopefully, I'll figure out how to post my own clips fairly soon.
Patrick, you've got a good eye! I did leave the top marginally thicker, as I felt it would be most typically played amplified.
Jason, good luck on your first. I've used Shanes Lutz on quite a few & like it a lot.

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Dave
Milton, ON

Hi Dave,

Great to have finally met you a couple weeks back at our little show - (Dave only lives about 20 minutes from me.)

I can personally attest to the fact that these guitars look better in person than in the photos here !!! They are truly top notch - this guy can build !!!

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Man oh man!

I've never been a fan of archtops Dave, and I believe it's a hangover from my childhood, when wanting a guitar my parents got me an archtop from monkey wards. Just wasn't what I had in mind, and I guess I just haven't gotten over it. But your posts just may be curing me. I just can't ignore your fine builds! They're simply stunning! I bet if I ever saw one in person my archtop phobia would be cured forever!

Thanks for being my personal shrink,
Joe

That's another beauty for sure Dave! Man, I'd love to try one out.

I'm just starting to play with dye myself. Did you use an airbrush on this one? Are you finding much difference between the spruces in the finished product? I'm just about ready to have a go at one myself.

Are you doing bolt ons on all now?

Cheers,
Danny

Thanks Tony. Good to finally meet you as well. Given the incredibly high standard of your work, your comments mean a great deal.
And thanks Joe & Danny (Danny, I just used a touch up gun. Practice first. Most of mine are bolt-ons.)

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Dave
Milton, ON

Dave,
I've said it before and I'll say it again, your guitars are serious works of art. Form and function at it's finest. I've even clicked on pictures of one of your guitars, blew it up and stared at it for a very long time. I could get lost in all that finesse.
Bravo... again.

Dave

Truly inspirational!