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.

A Spanish/Torres model in Swiss spruce and Indian rosewood

One from 2021 which I forgot to show. Highest grade Swiss spruce and Indian rosewood, Brazilian rosewood bridge, African Blackwood fingerboard, maple binding. A studio recording by the owner, composer Adrian Andrei.

Alpine spruce/Madagascar rosewood Torres hommage

A Torres hommage I built with one of my oldest sets of high grade Madagascar. Lovely lyrical response with deep bass and plump trebles. Blackwood fingerboard, cedro / carbon fiber neck, maple binding, ultra light aluminium Gotoh tuners. 640mm scale, early, unedited recording with d’addario normal tension strings.

A double top prototype

One of my composite soundboard prototypes which came to completion during the pandemic. Alpine spruce outer, balsa core, cedar inner, Indian rosewood body, Brazilian rosewood bridge, ebony binding and armrest. As always I did not design this for absolute volume/boom but a blend of tonal quality, sustain and projection. I was very pleased with the result: quality, singing trebles, low nasality, natural tone.

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.

#74 Traditional with modern features

Celebrating the aquisition of “marianguitars.com” with a post 🙂 This is my number 74 delivered in spring 2021. Hauser engine but with an elevated neck and armrest, Alpine spruce, old Rio bridge, ABW fingerboard, Madagascar rosewood body. Fortunate to have Dragos Ilie in town for a test run.

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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.

Italian spruce lattice /IRW

One lattice from late 2019, spruce from the Dolomites, light padauk bridge, extra hard special Indian rw body. Raw clip before French polish, carbon strings, no effects.

A “new” lattice

And I am still very very slow to update here…but trust me, working from home with two little girls in my hair can be quite difficult.  I already had a number of customers pulling out and many are losing their patience. But for the record i am alive and doing whatever I can to catch up.

 

So, this is a German spruce lattice started in last year and finished this spring with Indian body, elevated neck, Madagascar rosewood bridge and armrest, mahogany neck with ebony FB.

 

And a raw recording (no varnish) with carbon strings:

First elevated neck

My first elevated neck guitar!  While it doesn’t seem to make a tremendous difference in playability (at least for my hands/skill) there are several constructive aspects that make me wish I had started doing it sooner.

Red cedar soundboard, lattice braced, muninga bridge
Indian rosewood body and headplate, mahogany binding
Spanish cedar neck with African blackwood fingerboard, Gotoh premium tuners.

Recording is made with just a shellac seal coat on the soundboard, fresh uncured nitro back and sides, carbon strings (fresh as well thus going out of tune)