Good progress is being made on The Crow guitar. The top and interior templates have been made from baltic birch based on full scale drawings refined from my sketches—now they're ready to go. Here are the steps below: the drawings, the templates and the interior of the rim, which in this case was routed from Honduras mahogany.
The center block still has to be routed with the three different size tone chambers that I want to put directly under the bridge and tailpiece. Each chamber is a specific volume which relates to a different frequency range. This breaks up the spectrum and evens out the response when played at high volume. It reduces the tendency of the guitar to howl on a single note.
This is the rough rim placed on the spruce top which was being routed in the last post. The next task is to carve the interior of the top, then bond it to the rim. When the top and back are glued up, then the outside can be finalized and the top and back carved. Traditional archtop builders carve the entire top before attaching it to the rim—tapping as they carve to determine the thickness needed from each individual piece. In my case, I like to carve the interior, then carve the outside—tapping the entire assembly as one.
Diggin IT!!!!!!!! BIG TIME!!
Posted by: Scott | November 24, 2010 at 08:50 AM
That mahogany looks like old growth stuff, where do you come up with that? I also like the pointed cutaway, will that be on the finished shape? One thing that strikes me is that you are totally involved with every aspect and thought of your guitars which makes it a work of art.
Posted by: Kevin Madison | November 24, 2010 at 09:37 AM
I know that you were responsible for making Guild guitars so I wonder why you aren't bending the sides like an acoustic?
The guitar looks pretty amazing, so I'm just curios what your reasoning is.
Posted by: Jason | November 24, 2010 at 03:27 PM