Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

This one is a departure from standard stying, having a touch of deco about it, with frets stopping at 15. It's on my neo-classical chassis which I frequently use for steel string guitars and is ~ 00 size.

Top is Lutz, back and sides are high figure blackwood from Pete (Curly Timbers) and Jeremy, wedge body, ebony fretboard, EVO frets, New Guinea Rosewood 14 fret neck, ebonised walnut bridge, bloodwood purfling, Gotoh tuners and the usual falcate bracing, nut/saddle compensation scheme, side mass facilities etc, etc. The rosette is matching blackwood, paua abalone and the bloodwood line to go with the purfling. The finish is non-pore filled hard shellac on the B&S (which I call semi-gloss, but there's not a whole lot of semi about this one!) with the neck in gloss nitro with epoxy fill.
According to its new owner "Looks gorgeous, feels fantastic, sounds amazing - a lovely rich zingy bass and that magic something in the midrange that I think of as the soul of the instrument."

Merry Christmas to you all!

What can I say? Absolutely gorgeous Trevor, it's no secret I'm a fan of Blackwood and those pieces are exceptional (well done Pete) ! The rest looks a thing of beauty as well, and to have the sound to match?!.....one lucky customer.
Was stopping the frets at the 15th the customer's choice or something you dreamt up? It 'finishes' the instrument. That's a fairly subtle wedge too

Um....er...Trevor. I think you forgot to finish the fret job

Beautiful work Trevor, as usual.

Do you think your 14 fret falcate braced SS sound as good / loud / responsive as a similar 12 fret?

Nick wrote:What can I say? Absolutely gorgeous Trevor...

Thanks, Nick.

Nick wrote:Was stopping the frets at the 15th the customer's choice or something you dreamt up?

kiwigeo wrote:Um....er...Trevor. I think you forgot to finish the fret job

Customer request. Inspiration from the Santa Cruz Otis Taylor model.

Woodsy23 wrote:Do you think your 14 fret falcate braced SS sound as good / loud / responsive as a similar 12 fret?

Well, you can pretty well make any guitar as loud and responsive as you want. This one does sound different from my more usual 12 fret ones, though, but it is still a really attractive sound. A fair portion of the difference, I think, is down to the wedge. Other wedges I've done have been non-live backs and I didn't hear that difference. This one has a back designed to be live (and it is) but not in the usual sense of it showing up as a T(1,1)3, but it's still in there doing stuff and I think that is what's at least partly responsible for "that magic something in the midrange", because that's where the difference between this guitar and the usual 12 fret is.

I really enjoy doing these "different" guitars. I couldn't bear churning out the same stuff all the time. Thanks to the customers for providing the challenges!

Trevor, any chance of a VA FRC plot for this beauty? TIA

Here ya go...
95,181,230. The live back is having the affect of dropping the T(1,1) but because of the wedge, I think the pressure wave doesn't build in quite the same way to drive the appearance of a strong T(1,1)3. Speculation, of course, as I didn't do enough testing to definitely prove that.

Thanks Trevor.

that is possibly the finest guitar I have seen.
why did you not bring that to Newcastle last month
regards
Chris Clarke

yakka wrote:that is possibly the finest guitar I have seen.

Thanks, Chris!

yakka wrote:why did you not bring that to Newcastle last month

Probably due to it not having been assembled!