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It's been a long time since I've posted a build, so I thought I would share a couple of recent ones and the thought process that went into each one. First is a short scale steel stringed guitar. I had been mostly playing fingerstyle stuff on a classical guitar and I wanted something with a similar feel but with the steel string sound. I also wanted something that I could really dig into without tearing up my right hand. This can be a problem for me on a standard dred as I tend to play pretty heavy handed. I decided to make something with tension right in between a 25.4" scale Martin with medium strings and a classical guitar. Doing the calculations I came up with about 135 lbs of tension with standard light PB strings and a 23.5" scale. I figured to make it responsive enough for me I'd brace it really lightly, and make the body close to classical sized (about 14.5" wide and 3-3/4" deep). The outside of the top would be really floppy to try to pull a decent bass response from such a low powered guitar... I figured with the short scale and the steel strings the trebles would take care of themselves. To my amazement it worked as I expected and is pretty much my go-to guitar for fingerstyle playing. I built this free-form and tension-free (no mold) on a solara. The top is sitka, the back and sides are maple (sides are doubled), the neck and bindings are cherry, and the bridge is Pau Ferro.

This next one is my 36th guitar and another one built for my personal collection. Basically I just wanted a shorter scale classical guitar that could hold its own unaccompanied. I already had a pretty good requinto but it is made to be a soloing instrument... it is super weak in the bass department, so I built this one with a larger body and a looser top to try to get a nice bass. I wanted to tune up a fourth to A and use requinto strings which would put tension pretty close to a classical guitar's. After stringing it up I found that I was getting a great bass response, but the trebles were lacking... chords sounded a little muddy and playing up the neck was weak sounding. I decided to use slightly larger strings to increase tension and I also rose the saddle to put more torque on the bridge. This did the trick and it now has a nice balance with a good snap to the trebles. In retrospect, I could have probably made the body a little smaller. It is almost 15" wide and 4" deep at the lower bout; I think I could have made it 14-14.25" wide and 3.5-3.75" deep and gotten the same tone.

When bracing I tried something new as well... this one has very thin sides (at .075") and I just wanted to do a simple bolt-on neck with no Spanish heel. The cutaway needs some kind of reinforcement because the tension of the strings is up against a very strong arch on the bass side but up against a relatively weak leaf spring on the other. Over time the top can deform here and you end up with a mess. I decided to glue a little brace across the tops of the two transverse braces to beef up stiffness along that part of the top. So far so good, but only time will tell if it will be enough to combat the tension on the cutaway.

Specs: 22" scale, 11 frets to the body. Top is Western Redcedar, back, sides, and bridge are Indian rosewood. Neck and bindings are cherry. Finish is a French polish.

Gorgeous guitar!

Love the cherry neck and the maple. What type of maple is it? Never quite seen figure like that. Did you need to put a Truss Rod in? I don't see an adjustment slot. Also looks like you capped the tail block. Any reason other than looking nice inside the box? I like the way I've seen some others do details inside the box. Anyway, love it.

I build strictly classical, but want to expand to smaller steel strings and may follow your example in size.

Steve

Excellent guitars, both I love reading thought processes and how they turned out. Also, nice work on the freeform building. That's how I do as well.

I'm also puzzled by your tail block with those things hanging off the edge of it... and the headblock too. Perhaps the headblock's overhang is just there to prevent cracks along the edge of the fingerboard?

The second does look a little tubby, but I bet it sounds great I tend to prefer the sound of larger guitars.

I'm amused that you consider .075" to be "very thin" for sides. .080" is my "middle of the road" value, and my current work in progress has .040" sides. Honduran rosewood, and surprisingly they still feel very stiff and solid. I like it, and will be tending toward thinner sides on future steel strings as well, unless anything bad happens.

Oh, and the micro-bevels on both are cool. I'm not a fan of bevels visually, but I hate a sharp edge digging into my arm. I just round over the bindings as much as I can get away with, but your bevels are small enough not to be very noticeable, and would be even more cozy.

Hi all, the maple is birdseye sugar maple... with lots and lots of birds' eyes. It does have truss rod. I wait until the neck is fitted to drill those access holes. And the overhang on the tail block is because the tailblock's grain runs from the back to the top. I add a couple of layers of lining there so that there is some long grain to long grain gluing surface between the back and the tailblock.

And yes, I would consider .040" sides extremely thin! Do you have some sort of reinforcement for them?

Yep, lots of little side braces. Wouldn't go that thin on unreinforced sides, but the braces add very little weight, so it makes for an extremely light box. I'll have to see how this one sounds, and then build one with very heavy sides, to be sure which style I prefer. But I do know that I like the feel of light weight instruments, and the lack of bending and clamping forms that are needed to do laminated sides for maximum weight/stiffness.

Remember too that 0.040" sides is right around Torres' typical side thickness... Very unconventional nowadays.... but it worked for Torres... No doubt you would have to caution the owner about car key and blue-jean rivet cracks....

Anyway, really nice examples.. Kudos for trying out something totally different.... On the short scales... There's a reason they were so traditional for so long... Short scales can have a sweet, wonderful sound - and the instrument is also that much shorter... Easier to carry....

Thanks for the pix.

John

Remember that Torres' guitars didn't have to withstand the tension of today's steel stringed guitars either. I recall playing an 1850's Torres and being blown away by how great it sounded. It was feather light too.

Oh, and another boon to short scale guitars is that you can use woods like maple and cherry for the necks and they can still be nicely balanced weight-wise.