Modern fan bracing Cedar/Ziricote

This is my second in a series of guitars which take inspiration from the work of Dominique Field, this time in Red Cedar and 640 scale. With the addition of an elevated neck and a discreet soundport, I believe these offer an excellent blend of tone, volume, projection and playability, perfectly bridging the gap between purely traditional guitars and modern, heavy body lattice braced soundboards.

This set of Ziricote has been in my possession for more than 10 years. Perfectly quartersawn and virtually impossible to improve upon. Finest quality old rosewood headplate and bridge, matched in figure to the ziricote, ziricote headstock back, maple binding, African blackwood fingerboard, steel frets, cedrella neck, Gotoh premium tuners. 

I am including a couple videos, as always the pure sound as it came from the microphones, without any silly reverb or any other enhancement. First with zero finish (raw wood) and second with partial finish on, giving a more polished, closer to final sample. Also including a video from when I was bending the sides, quite terrified at the prospect of anything going wrong, as ziricote has a reputation of being extremely delicate. These actually bent like butter with zero distortions or any other of the usual bending issues.

A modern fan braced instrument in Alpine spruce and wenge

Pleased to present a 2022 guitar built for my friend, guitarist and teacher Costin Soare. Here I am revisiting the French school, this time taking inspiration from the works of Dominique Field. It is a Fleta style bracing (two harmonic bars under the soundhole but with only five fan braces, meaning a rather meaty soundboard) with densely braced, stiff back and sides. The guitar has excellent sustain and a thick, powerful first string. The tone is refined, reminding me of a Bouchet but with less nasality, more explosion, and a bolder more Spanish bass. The sound has good spontaneity and seems eager to project forward rather than being trapped inside. Overall I am very pleased and I will be using this as a starting point for my future modern spruce guitars.

Austrian Alpine spruce soundboard, African wenge back and sides, African sipo mahogany neck with rosewood reinforcement, African blackwood fingerboard with stainless steel frets, matched Brazilian rosewood bridge, heelcap and endgraft, Amazon rosewood carved headplate, Gotoh premium tuners.

Sample recordings are made in its early days (raw tone being bare wood) with carbon strings.

Bearclaw spruce / figured maple Torres hommage

Finally picking up with the deliveries…this time a feather light Torres homage in Italian intense bearclaw spruce and shell figure maple. Although I have been offered the maple as being Romanian maple, I suspect it might be from one of the American species instead, or even something entirely different (birch?) Whatever it is, the physical properties and tone are maple like. 640 scale, Malaysian ebony fingerboard, Madagascar rosewood headplate and bridge, Sipo mahogany neck and binding, ultra light aluminium plate Gotoh tuners.

This guitar has been a very pleasant surprise, with excellent projection and a treble tone ranging from clean clear to warm and sweet as needed. Demos below (below the photos) thanks to visits by Andrea de Vitis and Danguole Lingyte; normal tension d’addario nylon strings, absolutely no processing or effects used.

Spruce/Wenge lattice

Continuing to catch up with the blog, this is my first wenge guitar made in 2020, and despite the difficulties of using this wood the tone is really a pleasant surprise. The top is Italian Alpine spruce, wood lattice bracing, ebony headplate and binding, African blackwood fingerboard and armrest, Brazilian rosewood bridge. Below the gallery, a couple videos made by the owner.

A flamenco

I continue to show some older work, this time a flamenco from 2020, cedar with cypress, Rio fingerboard, aluminium tuners – quite light overall. Unfortunately the only sound sample is by yours truly and in raw wood. Big and rich sound, really loved it (especially for a cedar top)

A special Torres hommage

This is a Romanian maple Torres style guitar with a rather unusual feature: a sterling silver mini-tornavoz (and nut). Alpine spruce top, sipo neck, Blackwood head, Rio fb and bridge, ebony binding.

Fan braced Austrian spruce – Romanian maple

Traditional bracing, Austrian spruce soundboard with Romanian maple body
Brazilian rosewood bridge, African Blackwood fingerboard and headplate
Spanish cedar neck, Gotoh Deluxe tuners.

 

I’m very happy with the sound of this guitar.  Sweet and transparent tone, with a deep bass and fat trebles when asked for.  It also seems quite microphone-friendly.

Raw recordings before french polishing:

Lattice braced Carpathian spruce Bubinga

-lattice braced Carpathian spruce
-padauk bridge
-bubinga back and sides
-V-joint cedro neck with Amazon rowsewood fingerboard and Gotoh tuners
-maple binding

Bubinga is an African tonewood becoming more used in the recent years, although more so on steel string guitars. It is very hard and dense, above typical rosewoods, with a dry, woody taptone. The tone is clean and direct, reminding me of both maple and ebony. I am pleased with how it turned out and obtained several high grade sets.

Cedar – “the tree” mahogany with rosewood neck

This is a special guitar which I made for myself. It happened that last year the number of builds caught up with my age – 34.
The (fan-braced) soundboard is the best I have handled so far, rivaling a double top.   According to the seller it came from a reclaimed dead tree from the Vancouver area.
-back, sides, headplate and rosette of highly figured Honduras mahogany,  the famous “the tree” cut in 1965.
-neck and bridge of 60 yo Brazilian rosewood
-fingerboard and back strip of bois-de-rose Madagascar rosewood, Indian rw binding.
-Gilbert tuners

Recently the guitar passed to an incredible guitarist I met, Cristian Gramesc from Salzburg.
Soundclips: pieces by Tedesco, Regondi and Brouwer, Savarez strings.

Hommage à Romanillos Flamenco blanca

Flamenco blanca, Austrian spruce soundboard and Spanish cypress body.
Jose Romanillos inspired decoration, whom I greatly admire as both luthier and person
small Spanish plantilla, 650mm scale
Cedro neck, V-joint, head plated with Amazon rosewood and bird’s eye maple
“Bois de Rose” Madagascar rosewood fingerboard
rosette background is bois de rose, “the tree” mahogany and 100yo Cuban mahogany; arches side grain flamed maple
hand-made herringbone purfling, all natural colors from more than 10 different species of wood
Brazilian rosewood bridge.

A few soundclips recorded by a classical player not being able to get a flamenco player in a short notice are linked below the photos. Guitar is absolutely asleep being strung for just 1 hour. D’addario EXP46 strings.