Archtop Guitars at The Met!!!

I had the pleasure of checking out the incredible exhibit on archtop guitars at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan a couple weeks ago. Simply stunning! Here is a link to the exhibit's website. While working at Rudy's Music in 2007-8, I was lucky enough to play many of Rudy's archtop guitars, some of which are included in the exhibit. The experience of playing, hearing, and just studying the fine craftsmanship of these guitars made by D'Angelico, D'Aquisto, Monteleone, Stromberg & Gibson was a major inspiration. I credit those guitars with getting me into luthiery. It's a rare and humbling experience to play these instruments. What a sound!

I should also note that Rudy Pensa released a magnificent large format book, "Archtop Guitars: The Journey from Cremona to New York" on the three great New York archtop builders: D'Angelico, D'Aquisto & Monteleone. My wife surprised me with my own copy and it's just jaw dropping, gorgeous stuff! Highly recommended. More info at Rudy's website.

New Acoustic Build Begins

Well folks, it's finally time to make saw dust again. I began work on another guitar build the other day. This one will be an acoustic dreadnought. Here are the basic ingredients:

L to R: ebony fingerboard, a small piece of cocobolo for the overlay (a thin decoative laminate on the front of the guitar's headstock), the brownish wood its bookmatched Indian rosewood for the back (the matching sides are not pictured) and two pieces of bookmatched Adirondack spruce lie on what look like two 2x4s. Those 2x4s are in fact a set of tiger flamed maple that I'll be carving into the guitar's neck.

The top, or soundboard, gluing up:


and the back:


You can see two sets of orange clamps applying pressure from either side of the wood in the above photos. The four blocks are firmly wedged under a steel bar to apply downward pressure, keeping the wood flat and preventing buckling. I used hot hide glue to join the soundboard and will also use it to glue the braces to the top. Hide glue is an animal derivative that has been used for thousands of years and has many advantages over synthetic wood glues. Commonly used in violin construction & repair, hide glue dries to an incredibly hard, crystalline strength. This extreme hardness greatly enhances vibration transfer from one piece of wood to another, producing a stronger and fuller tone from the instrument. One disadvantage though, is the fast working time. Hide glue is kept warm in a glue pot and applied with a brush. It is necessary to work very efficiently as the glue sets up extremely quickly as it cools off outside of the heated pot. Read more about hide glue here.

Acoustic guitars are typically built with mahogany necks but I had the hankering to do something a little different. Below are my two maple slabs sandwiching a black decorative strip. When the instrument is done, the black strip will run a simple pinstripe up the back of the neck.

The more clamps the merrier! The next day, clamps removed:

More to come!