Gallery
Carved Archtop Guitar
Aug 07, 2009
Here’s an archtop guitar I built recently. The top is carved from Western Red Cedar, the back from one piece of quilted maple. The neck is a lamination of Curly maple and Pau Ferro (Bolivian Rosewood) with a lacquer finish. Hope you like.
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Comments
If this guitar sounds even half as good as it looks, it is a treasure. It would be difficult to be near this instrument and not want to touch it.
Beautiful work! Well done.
The guitar is certainly beautiful to behold, Okotok, and I commend you on your acomplishment, but I wouldn't be the first to point out that a guitar is only as lovely as it sounds, so you are clearly not afraid of robust comment from our fellow woodies who also happen to be musicians! Would I be correct in assuming the instrument resembles the Selmer Maccaferi guitars popularised by Django Reinhardt? Well done,regardless!
I appreciate the comments. I play this guitar a lot and really like the sound. It also has an electric pickup installed inside and not visible.
Django's instruments were not carved but had a bend or "pliage in the top. This guitar is based on the early Gibson archtops based on a violin style instrument and using Benedetto's plans as a base. The top was actually two 1" cedar boards joined. The back started out at 1" thick as well. The back ends up at approx. 3/16" thickness tapering to about 1/8" at the edges. The top approx. 5/16" in the center taper to approx. 1/8" at the edges or "recurve. It's carved by drilling out most of the waste and then using gouges, hand planes and then sandpaper.
Once again, thanks for the comments.
Forgot to add that archtops are most commonly built with "F" holes, like a violin although the earliest Gibsons had an oval hole like mine or like a Selmer style like Django uses.
Okotok;
A beautiful guitar! Well done!
To tell the truth, I didn't notice it until you had commented on the Cherry toolchest I made and told me you had made one substantially larger! It must have taken two men and a boy to get it upstairs; mine is heavy, even tho smaller!
But that's OK; someday in the far distant future, you can use it for a coffin!
It reminds me of the story my Dad used to tell about he and a friend building a canoe in the attic and then realizing they had no way to get it out!
You did a great job on the guitar!
Frank
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