Bevel Top Tenor Cigar
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 11:09 am
This is a tenor bevel top guitar, most likely a one off. Made to give context to my cigarbox tables. I actually know people not very interested in luthiery !
scale............23 1/4 in, tuned in 5's cgda
body............cut from one piece of PNG Rosewood 420mm x 220mm x 50mm
neck............kwila
fb and
veneers...... Solomon Blackwood
Top.......25mm
sides.....9mm
back......2.6mm
The top graduations are 90% off the saw and worked after it was glued to the sides. No recurve as such but worked to 3mm on the sides and ends.
The sides are carved to a C profile, 3- 4mm at the centre. This greatly improved the tap tone.
The tone bars are thinner but taller than a mandolin, about 10mm under the feet, falling away to nothing. At this stage I worked the top and the bars
flipping it over and testing deflection at the ff's with finger pressure. I spent a day working the top, bars and sides. As crude as it is it was an absorbing
challenge.
The bridge started out twice as big and took 3 goes to get the final size.
I didn't organise proper tenor guitar strings and am making do with tenor banjo strings gdae. The 2 wound strings seemed floppy so it's now cross tuned
like a fiddle aeae, big improvment.
In the end it's better than I expected but just ok. It's like a talking dog. You don't care what he says...he can talk!
I would like to make a regular tenor but a 5 string, cgdae, giving it the range of a fiddle/ viola.
I would love to take credit for the calligraphy ff's. I saw them on the Mastronet site about 6 mos ago in an unrelated thread. I can't find the thread.
scale............23 1/4 in, tuned in 5's cgda
body............cut from one piece of PNG Rosewood 420mm x 220mm x 50mm
neck............kwila
fb and
veneers...... Solomon Blackwood
Top.......25mm
sides.....9mm
back......2.6mm
The top graduations are 90% off the saw and worked after it was glued to the sides. No recurve as such but worked to 3mm on the sides and ends.
The sides are carved to a C profile, 3- 4mm at the centre. This greatly improved the tap tone.
The tone bars are thinner but taller than a mandolin, about 10mm under the feet, falling away to nothing. At this stage I worked the top and the bars
flipping it over and testing deflection at the ff's with finger pressure. I spent a day working the top, bars and sides. As crude as it is it was an absorbing
challenge.
The bridge started out twice as big and took 3 goes to get the final size.
I didn't organise proper tenor guitar strings and am making do with tenor banjo strings gdae. The 2 wound strings seemed floppy so it's now cross tuned
like a fiddle aeae, big improvment.
In the end it's better than I expected but just ok. It's like a talking dog. You don't care what he says...he can talk!
I would like to make a regular tenor but a 5 string, cgdae, giving it the range of a fiddle/ viola.
I would love to take credit for the calligraphy ff's. I saw them on the Mastronet site about 6 mos ago in an unrelated thread. I can't find the thread.
There is a very distinct and fresh ring on the bench..... 
