Edvin Guitars first falcate braced OM Size

[edvinguitars.fi]

After having read Trevor Gore’s book “Contemporary Acoustic Guitar” for a couple of times, I finally finished building my first falcate braced OM sized acoustic guitar a few weeks ago. My feeling is that this is the most resonant and tonally exciting guitar I have built and I might say also that it is the best sounding one I have ever played, including expensive factory made guitars. This guitar really shines in fingerstyle playing and styles where you have to play and express music utilizing its huge reserve in loudness and nice tonal quality. For demo purpose, my playing skills are yet not on par with this guitar, but I try to have someone to play some fingerstlyle stuff for a demo later.
For the overall looks I was targeting to elegant and simple style. I left out pearl everywhere else except rosette. I used flamed maple, selected light Sitka spruce, East Indian rosewood as main woods. Fretboard marking decoration is made of arctic birch “Visa”, with 0.3mm maple veneer around it.
Key specifications
· Size: OM-Cutaway, 12 fret, Spanish Cedar neck, Sitka top (375kg/m3)
· Stainless steel frets Medium
· Gotoh 510 tuners
· Nitro lacquer, tried to minimize the thickness, measured about 0.07mm
· Live back as per in Gore’s book
· Laminated sides, these are extremely sturdy, made of 2x2.2mm sides (rosewood/purpleheart)
· Placeholder for additional weights in side (helps to adjust resonant frequencies of the guitar)
· Falcate – bracing strenghtened with carbon fiber
· Bridge: American walnut, with carbon reinforcement
· Tusq bridge/saddle + bridge pins, compensated for every string
Unprocessed (no reverb etc) demo in open C tuning, when I tested added side weight response. Seems the sustain lasts forever! :

https://youtu.be/99SwPz8Jvqo

[Dave M]

That looks excellently executed. Very dark Indian Rosewood. I have built a few falcates and the design just seems to work.

Did you find a need to adjust the frequencies with side masses?

Cheers Dave

[GregHolmberg]

Wow. Gorgeous. Amazing work.

Did you have any trouble obtaining North American woods (Walnut, Sitka) in Finland?

And Spanish Cedar comes from Central and South America, I think? Usually used on nylon-string guitars, its flexural modulus is a little on the low side, at 9.12 GPa. Have you found much deflection with the steel strings, at twice the tension?

Did you measure the monopole mobility of the top? What are air, top, and back frequencies?

Welcome to ANZLF!

Greg

[Dave M]

You have managed really clean use of the epoxy with the cf. Mine.don't look any where near as tidy. The wheatsheah purfling looks great and I notice that you have given the top string some more space from the edge of the fretboard so it doesn't get pulled off.

I would use a more sharp cutaway but that is simply an aesthetic choice. Don't have access to photos just now but will post later. A great looking guitar.

[WJ Guitars]

Brilliant guitar build. Falcate bracing is the way to go. Like the youtube demo.

Wayne

[edvinguitars.fi]

Wow. Gorgeous. Amazing work.
Did you have any trouble obtaining North American woods (Walnut, Sitka) in Finland?
And Spanish Cedar comes from Central and South America, I think? Usually used on nylon-string guitars, its flexural modulus is a little on the low side, at 9.12 GPa. Have you found much deflection with the steel strings, at twice the tension?
Did you measure the monopole mobility of the top? What are air, top, and back frequencies?
Welcome to ANZLF!

Greg

Thanks Greg.

I source Walnut from Maderas Barber or Madinter in Spain (latter being part of Stewmac nowadays). Sitka is brought from alaska, I managed to grab a few with me when I flew to the US for business. It is not "normal" sitka as you may see from the grain. It is specifically sorted to be on the light side, way less than 400kg/m3, which is light for Sitka.

Spanish cedar is very old stock from a local builder that retired and sold his stock for me. Something like 30..40 years old. I am not worried about the stiffness as I traditionally reinforce my necks with 2pcs 3x10mm carbon fiber rods.

Monopoly mobility is to be measured, I am following the thread on this forum to take the best ideas for the job. Also joined the course by Gore in the U.S., on 10/24 , looking forward to learning more stuff in the live session.

Without weights ( except my weighty double laminated sides using purple heart in inner) I hit 96/178/226, by shawing off the back brace briefly, maybe 2-3mm

no weights.JPG (37.1 KiB) Viewed 2026 times

With side weights, I got 96/170/220, maybe a little bit more volume on the bass side and maybe some audible better harmonics. But the extra weight is so much I do not take this into daily use. Maybe is I need for some special recording.

540g sideweight.JPG (36.37 KiB) Viewed 2026 times

[edvinguitars.fi]

You have managed really clean use of the epoxy with the cf. Mine.don't look any where near as tidy. The wheatsheah purfling looks great and I notice that you have given the top string some more space from the edge of the fretboard so it doesn't get pulled off.
I would use a more sharp cutaway but that is simply an aesthetic choice. Don't have access to photos just now but will post later. A great looking guitar.

The pic+camera lens just fools your eye, my string spacing to edge is pretty much standard to any other "normal " acoustic.

I did make a mold for the sharp cutaway shape as well, but frankly speaking, I did not like so much the shape in the book , realized that when I stared at the templates in my workshop. Plus, I broke the first mahogany side in the bender and then thought it would be a major pain in the butt to bend the flame maple bindings on that curve. So I will probably return to that project later, because I already have bent the inner sides from purpleheart flawlessly. Will use a bit thinner mahogany+ rosewood binding which is easy to bend.

[edvinguitars.fi]

That looks excellently executed. Very dark Indian Rosewood. I have built a few falcates and the design just seems to work.

Did you find a need to adjust the frequencies with side masses?

Cheers Dave

The youtube demo is done with side masses. No need for them but I tried . The data is posted in this thread to see the difference. The indian rosewood is selected from retired very famous local luthier's stock, super nice stuff I must say. I was lucky to buy like 10 sets of this wood that has been sawn and dried (very important here in north) for looooong time.

[Mark McLean]

That is a beautiful guitar! Welcome to ANZLF and thanks for sharing your work. I spent last night carving a maple neck with ebony fingerboard and started wondering what sort of fret position markers to put on it. Now I am going to use the idea of your edge markers which can be seen from the front and the side. So this makes you a confirmed member of the ANZLF community - your ideas have already stolen from you here!

[GregHolmberg]

Without weights ( except my weighty double laminated sides using purple heart in inner) I hit 96/178/226, by shawing off the back brace briefly, maybe 2-3mm

I think that's right on target. 95/180/227. In any case, it sounds great!

Thanks for sharing.

Greg