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work in progress

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 3:19 pm
by Brian Evans
Building two archtops this winter, one "Moderne" and one "Traditional". Moderne is 16" sinker redwood over birdseye maple, padauk fretboard, and Traditional is 17" spruce over quilted maple, with rosewood. I just bolted the necks on today, for the first time, so felt like taking a few pictures.

Re: work in progress

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 3:29 pm
by Brian Evans
The Moderne is obviously inspired by Parker, but with my fully asymmetrical body, 16" lower bout, 2 3/4" side depth, X braced with an extra transverse brace across the bottom of the lower bout because the sinker redwood is so very light and insubstantial even at .22" thick down the middle. The headstock is inspired by both Parker and Matsuda. The birdseye maple was sawn by a friend of mine in 1972, his sawmill was around 1/4 mile from my shop. There is a 1/2" maple dowel longitudinal brace between the top of the headblock and the tail block to take up string tension loads so I could carve the X-braced top a little lighter, again in respect of the nature of the very old redwood. Fretboard is padauk, 1.85" nut width and planning 2.3" string spacing at the bridge.

Re: work in progress

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 3:34 pm
by Brian Evans
Here is the Traditional, kind of speaks for itself. Things I've never tried before on this guitar are the cutaway, the 4 layer binding/purfling, the bound F-holes and the MoP inlay on the fretboard. A learning experience, but I think it will look fine and sound good. It's parallel tone bar braced, spruce top and quilted maple back and sides, three piece maple/walnut neck and rosewood fretboard, veneers, etc. Again nut width is around 1.80" and probably 2.25" string spacing at the bridge. I hope to put a DeArmond floating pickup on this one. It's supposed to be in the 1950's style.

Re: work in progress

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 5:45 pm
by John Clifford
Very nice looking guitars, Brian. So you do an unglued mortise and tenon neck joint with a single bolt through the strap button holding it together, is that right?