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.

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.

#59

Another one that slipped through, built over 2018 and 2019.  This time a fan braced soundboard (Italian spruce) on a modern chassis.  Indian body, African blackwood armrest.

 

And a fresh bare wood, raw soundclip took with somewhat worn test strings:

 

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:

Long time no see

Hey friends…  just in case anyone is wondering, I am still alive.  But life has been quite complicated, especially 2017, forcing me to neglect to update here as often as I used to.  But to mention positives, a lot of work to do plus a baby (and now a second on the way!)

I’d like to show a little Torres hommage guitar I finished a while ago for myself.  The soundboard is 5(!) pieces Carpathian spruce which comes from an old construction beam I split myself in true Torres fashion.  Body is extremely rare bois-de-rose rosewood.  At a casual look it looks all but black while strong light reveals a wonderful deep eggplant color.  Bridge is Madagascar rosewood, fingerboard is bookmatched Brazilian rosewood; simple Brazilian boxwood binding, dark old Khaya mahogany neck with v-joint and carved on both sides of the neck.   Pics are complete with workshop dust. Finish is shellac top, nitro back, wax over oil neck.

I am very happy with the sound – lively, effortless and sweet. As a demo guitar it brought in several orders from people seeking traditional over modern.