Would you trust a rather unknown luthier who ...

[RJVB]

A while back I discovered someone here in France who started building guitars after retiring from his job in a field that certainly qualifies him as a builder of nice (wooden) objects. Being retired he builds as a hobby, up to 4 guitars a year (with enough demand that his current delivery moment for a new order is around summer 2025). He does this against cost, so a carved-top archtop costs 2500€ (or 3500€ for one with a carved back too.

I actually discovered him looking for nylon archtop builders, because he built one for a Belgian jazz/choro/bossa guitarist - a 7 string even, which is being presented as that player's signature model (...!) on the builder's site.

That asking price is almost too good to be true esp. now that I sold my violin ... but it's still a sum I'd hate to spend on a deception that I can't sell without significant loss. IOW, maybe I should accept to pay about double that price, or let my dream instrument remain an instrument in my dreams... (and buy a better "normal" crossover instead). BTW, if I had sold my violin for a sum more representative of its value I wouldn't have hesitated to order a Slaman or Kopo.

I've contacted him to test the waters, and he's been pushing me to start a cahier des charges, which I accepted to play along with underlining that I'm not getting engaged to anything.

I've gotten some feedback from the owner of that 7-string, which he doesn't use anymore because of problems, something that already doesn't inspire a lot of confidence even if I know full well that a 1st instrument is rarely a complete success. But during the course of our exchanges he also
- called pressed tops an acoustic abomination. IIRC the tops of Daniel Slaman's The Dome are pressed solid wood, and my violin luthier told me recently that it's not an uncommon technique in (less expensive) violins too (and that you don't necessarily hear a difference).
- claimed that the saddle on a nylon-string is always perpendicular to the strings

The latter claim would be an immediate deal-breaker if we weren't talking about a floating bridge.

FWIW, the instrument being proposed would have a top of only 2.5mm, with the f-holes shifted forward like on a resonator in order to maintain sufficient structural strength. For comparison, Alan Carruth told me he went down to 3mm (also on a nylon-string, round-hole archtop) and that carving his tops wasn't "for the faint of heart".

[Jimmy blue note]

FWIW, the instrument being proposed would have a top of only 2.5mm, with the f-holes shifted forward like on a resonator in order to maintain sufficient structural strength. For comparison, Alan Carruth told me he went down to 3mm (also on a nylon-string, round-hole archtop) and that carving his tops wasn't "for the faint of heart".

Ha ha I'm smiling because as I read this, I was thinking of all the time I spent as an apprentice, journeyman and building with Al Carruth for the time we had together, a span of many years. All the subtle changes he made in design (Al is considered a luthier sage in many circles) and the fact that MANY times new designs were based on the sum total of all existing data and knowledge, yet revealed some unforseen factour that revises the equation and produces less than stellar results. He never sold a failed experiment to a paying customer.
Top thicknesses are also unexplored territory when it comes to driving forces outside of the normal range of steel string guitars.

I don't want to throw a wet blanket on your luthier's new business but archtop lutherie is not the product of luck, a fast study or hopeful coincidence. Why don't you let him build another 10 guitars, learn from them and then think about a commission.

Just a piece of advice from someone who's been on the other side.
Learn from the traditions, make mistakes, learn from them, build better than you did and minimize the chance of unpleasant surprises.
That's the way it's done.
Just my two cents...

[vintagelove]

If he let one instrument out the door with problems...

I'd pass.

[RJVB]

Why don't you let him build another 10 guitars, learn from them and then think about a commission.

You're certainly not wrong, and I had of course already been thinking about this.

He doesn't get a lot of archtop commissions from what I can tell and the way everything becomes more expensive faster than money in the bank grows ... I'll probably end up buying from someone else *) or something completely different (like a tiny addition to whatever old-age pension I may end up getting ).

FWIW, I think it's been a bit more than 10 years since he started selling guitars so the business isn't that new. His site looks like it was set up even longer ago even, in fact

In fairness, the problems with the instrument I mentioned are at least avoidable. The original bridge wasn't stable and has been replaced (by a local luthier but that's probably mostly because of distance considerations). The sketches I've received show a different design so he may have taken feedback on this into account. The other issue is trickier to point fingers over but also not too hard to avoid: there are so many sound ports on the guitar (including a gaping opening that acts as a cut-away that the guitar lacks resonance and thus volume (and/or sustain). So I'm trying to keep the number of soundholes/ports down.

*) I've contacted others, including Daniel Slaman and Isaac from Cranmer Guitars who does nice work IMHO (and expressed an interest in trying his hand at a nylon-string version; somehow I'm inclined to have a bit more confidence in that).

[sgcim]

Don't underestimate the work of luthiers who worked in other areas of woodwork than guitars.
Both Ken Parker and Roger Borys started out as furniture makers before they turned their wood working skills to guitars.
Roger told me a funny story about how his fellow furniture makers used to make light of his making guitars, because they looked at it as an impractical way to make a living.
Then the furniture making company they all worked for went out of business, but Roger was able to make a good living making guitars.
His fellow furniture makers all of a sudden became envious of his guitar making ability...

He has also exhibited some of his non-guitar making art work at art exhibits.

[rlrhett]

Nylon string archtops are VERY challenging. Speaking of Al Carruth, I know of no other recognized master builder who has ever built them, and to my knowledge he gave up on them. I built six prototypes before I had one I liked, and only after I began using carbon fiber composites for the soundboard. I only built three. One I donated to a school in Madrid, one is for me to play, and one developed a slight twist in the neck and I’ve never fixed it. FWIW here is a link to me playing one. I’ve posted this before, but here it is again:

i don’t think I would commission a hobby builder for something so specialized. Perhaps if he had a spec built guitar that you could play. If he cracked the code, and you love the guitar, then the price seems very fair. But unless he is focused on that, I don’t think it’s something you can successfully improvise.

[Alter]

In every field, if you want professional results, use professionals. There's no substitute for dedication and experience.

[thelostboss]

Many years ago I owned a "Wayne Ampliphone" resonator guitar produced by a local furniture maker in Melbourne, Australia.

I had previously played a National metal body but thought that the wooden bodied Dobro style might suit better with what I was doing at the time.

As luthiers go they actually produced a pretty good side table but that was about it. I was later told that the guitar business was a way to make use of otherwise wasted off-cuts. I have no way to verify the truth of that but it did make sense at the time when the story told was that one of their cabinet makers had an interest in guitars and might be able to add some value.

Happy to be corrected by anyone with better information.

Some furniture makers obviously move on to make top flight guitars, others produce guitar shaped TV stands.

For a while I created brass body resonator guitars for a limited customer base, ultimately we all realized that there were others who did it both better and cheaper! [on the other hand my hand made billiard cues are still collectible items]

[mauibob]

In my first business trip to NYC in 1970, I made my pilgrimage down to Kenmare Street to see the famed John D’Angelico. Upon entering the shop I found no one there except for this young guy working in the back. He told me that Mr. D had passed away. I inquired if any of his guitars were around for sale. The young man said “No. But I have a couple of these I’m working on…” and he pointed to a couple of 17” cutaways hanging from pegs along the right wall. I said “Well. that’s all right.” and I left the shop.

I remember his first name was “Jimmy”

[thelostboss]

In my first business trip to NYC in 1970, I made my pilgrimage down to Kenmare Street to see the famed John D’Angelico. Upon entering the shop I found no one there except for this young guy working in the back. He told me that Mr. D had passed away. I inquired if any of his guitars were around for sale. The young man said “No. But I have a couple of these I’m working on…” and he pointed to a couple of 17” cutaways hanging from pegs along the right wall. I said “Well. that’s all right.” and I left the shop.

I remember his first name was “Jimmy”

Just as well you passed and saved your money then I guess!

[wintermoon]

Just as well you passed and saved your money then I guess!

Not!!

[thelostboss]

Not!!

yeah, but, how was I to know!!!!!

[thelostboss]

In my first business trip to NYC in 1970, I made my pilgrimage down to Kenmare Street to see the famed John D’Angelico. Upon entering the shop I found no one there except for this young guy working in the back. He told me that Mr. D had passed away. I inquired if any of his guitars were around for sale. The young man said “No. But I have a couple of these I’m working on…” and he pointed to a couple of 17” cutaways hanging from pegs along the right wall. I said “Well. that’s all right.” and I left the shop.

I remember his first name was “Jimmy”

There are a very large number of luthiers / guitar builders out there producing great work that will never be appreciated until a "first buyer" takes the plunge.
The problem with this is that the majority of purchasers follow what they know or if they are "investor purchasers" will follow where the market says the profit is.
It is incredibly difficult to break into this market as a new/unknown builder. This is definitely not the way things should work to encourage innovation.

But then as jazz guitarists with our choice of particular instruments to create our work are we not encouraging stagnation in the "jazz luthier" business? As a builder should I innovate or simply replicate (as close as possible) the ES-175??

Food for thought perhaps?

[RJVB]

Don't underestimate the work of luthiers who worked in other areas of woodwork than guitars.

I know!! But there's a little bit more that goes into building an acoustic instrument than just being good at creating a beautifully finished object that fits perfectly together and holds up to the strain of the strings you put on

Someone mentioned resonators: they're probably easier to build for someone with generic woodworking skills. AFAIK they don't work as airpumps like regular acoustic guitars but more like loudspeakers. My own wood-body reso definitely has a stiff cabinet that's probably only lighter than that of my speakers because it's meant to be playabe.

Nylon string archtops are VERY challenging. Speaking of Al Carruth, I know of no other recognized master builder who has ever built them, and to my knowledge he gave up on them.

Nope, he didn't give up on them, he just has too little demand for them, at least for the classical archtop guitars he is most interested in. His tariffs are out of reach for me plus he's across the pond, otherwise I'd be discussing with him right now.
There are other well-known builders who've built nylon-string archtops though, even Benedetto have built one or two AFAIK. But most seem built with the idea in mind that they'd be amplified anyway.

I'll have to re-listen to your CF archtop with good headphones but AFAICT it sounds a lot better than the few carbon fibre classicals I've heard. Is that purely the acoustic voice we're hearing?

[rlrhett]

Yeah. Just a webcam microphone. I put some piezo soundboard transducers on it, but never plugged it in.

To address some of the other’s posts, I want to make clear I am all for guitars from young unknown luthiers. I think it is shocking (and depressing) that rabid jazzers with cash, and there are plenty of them on this forum, aren’t out there hunting the next great thing. We seem as brand obsessed as a bunch of teenagers lusting over athletic shoes.

I just don’t recommend asking someone who has only built a couple of guitars to do anything too far afield from the tried and true. Benedetto wrote a good book on archtop building. Thousands of people have built from his book and there are great communities that can guide you in a successful build. The basics of building that guitar are well understood giving the individual luthier’s talent, attention to detail, and inspiration a chance to shine. You can take a chance on a commission because you are buying a known quantity.

Asking a new builder to make something for which there is no established blueprint is a very different thing. Maybe your luthier has figured it out and builds a great nylon string archtop, but I would want to play one first.

FWIW the reason nylon is challenging is because nylon imparts a lot less energy than steel strings. Also, a flat top twists with a vibrating string whereas an archtop is only driven up and down. More of the string’s energy is captured by the flat top. Finally, a typical archtop has significantly more mass than a classical top. Add that all together and you have a near insurmountable engineering obstacle. You can’t just follow Benedetto’s book and slap nylon strings on it.

[RJVB]

Yeah. Just a webcam microphone.

It'd be great to hear some more of it, recorded with a bit better gear!

We seem as brand obsessed as a bunch of teenagers lusting over athletic shoes.

Indeed! This isn't any different from the average classical violinist/cellist preferring old instruments over newly built ones...

You can’t just follow Benedetto’s book and slap nylon strings on it.

Well, you can ... but you'd need amplification.

I've tried it on my old all-laminate German round-hole archtop. It had a really thin top with only a single transverse brace under the bridge. Curiously enough it sounded quite nice with light steel strings but anemic with carbonfluor trebles with a really high (theoretical) tension.
(To a point where I've been wondering if this kind of top needs to be subjected to a certain minimum load before it becomes responsive, not unlike how a condenser mic needs phantom power.)

[sgcim]

In my first business trip to NYC in 1970, I made my pilgrimage down to Kenmare Street to see the famed John D’Angelico. Upon entering the shop I found no one there except for this young guy working in the back. He told me that Mr. D had passed away. I inquired if any of his guitars were around for sale. The young man said “No. But I have a couple of these I’m working on…” and he pointed to a couple of 17” cutaways hanging from pegs along the right wall. I said “Well. that’s all right.” and I left the shop.

I remember his first name was “Jimmy”

My father grew up on Elizabeth Street, and used to hangout at John D's shop with his friend Duke (who was the jeweler who designed the New Yorker logo for the headstock of John D's New Yorker model and made a lot of the inlays for many D'A fingerboards-real name Hugo Cimarelli).
My father bought Duke's "Snakehead" model D'A from him when Duke bought his NYer.

They used to see this little kid named Jimmy, who swept up the place for John D. every day.
Years later, when my father heard about this new luthier named D'Aquisto, he stopped by his new shop in Huntington to see what they were like.
To his amazement, D'Aquisto turned out to be the little kid Jimmy, who swept up John D's shop.

Unfortunately, my father had stopped playing when he got married, and I never remember him talking about buying one of the 'new kid's ' expensive guitars.

[RJVB]

only after I began using carbon fiber composites for the soundboard. I only built three.

How do you arch that composite? I now have another opinion from a luthier (with formal lutherie training) that "you cannot thermo-form a solid top" (i.e. arch it using pressure & heat and probably humidity). And yet I thought this is exactly what Daniel Slaman does for his The Dome guitars.

So what's up with this... as a layman I find it harder to imagine that you could force a solid spruce top into a recurved arch by just glueing it onto an X-brace and the sides, without using heat and steam. I know it's done for classical guitar tops and the backs of certain acoustic guitars too, but those arches are so subtle you have to know they're there...

[TedBPhx]

I have a Washburn J600k, not a great guitar, the spruce top is marketed as pressed, not laminate or carved solid. I assume they used some sort of heat and pressure rig.

[rlrhett]

You absolutely can press a solid top with the right industrial equipment. Epiphone Century that came out a few years ago have pressed solid tops. That said, no one ever claimed that they were amazing guitars.

carbon fiber is a cloth. It doesn’t need to be pressed into shape. That said, it does need to be vacuum pressed to ensure the epoxy is evenly and properly distributed.

[Jimmy blue note]

In my first business trip to NYC in 1970, I made my pilgrimage down to Kenmare Street to see the famed John D’Angelico. Upon entering the shop I found no one there except for this young guy working in the back. He told me that Mr. D had passed away. I inquired if any of his guitars were around for sale. The young man said “No. But I have a couple of these I’m working on…” and he pointed to a couple of 17” cutaways hanging from pegs along the right wall. I said “Well. that’s all right.” and I left the shop.

I remember his first name was “Jimmy”

I KNOW!!! When I lived in NY during the 70's, Matty Uminov had a D'Aquisto in the shop. It was on a stand in the middle of the floor and it was for sale there for a grand. Mind you, you could go to Music Row uptown and get a Gibson Johnny Smith for about $500; that was a lot of money back then. Before the collectors' wave from Japan cleared the shelves. Yeah we did know that these were exceptional instruments but back then a grand was way more than I thought I'd ever have.
Should have invested in a crystal ball.

[equenda]

You absolutely can press a solid top with the right industrial equipment. Epiphone Century that came out a few years ago have pressed solid tops. That said, no one ever claimed that they were amazing guitars.

carbon fiber is a cloth. It doesn’t need to be pressed into shape. That said, it does need to be vacuum pressed to ensure the epoxy is evenly and properly distributed.

First: my "main" hobby is RC model airplane design and building. I have a pretty good knowledge of woods, fiberglass and carbon fiber. In my flying models I use many diferent type of wood and I build fiberglass and Carbon-Fiber parts (fuselage, wings, spars, landing gears, etc.)

You can apply fiberglass cloth on wood or foam (or even paper) and then you apply the epoxy resin for lamination. At this point you can just wait some hours until the complete cure of the resin OR use the "vacuum bag" technique.....something pretty complicate and expensive. With Carbon-Fiber cloth (we call it the Black Mat) you can have another (more expensive and complicated) option: to use an "autoclave" to prepare the piece. This is the way used by professional to make parts for cars, motorcycles, airplanes, etc.
Nothing can beat CF for weight-to-strenght ratio (maybe Titanium, but it's impossible to find and to work....for "normal" people).

I don't know how is made a carbon-fiber guitar but the sound can't be compared to the wood.
Of course a CF instrument has no problems with humidity, cold or heat. But it definitely won't get better over time.

Note: the wings of my "Whisper" RC sailplane are made with a "sandwich" of balsa wood and fiberglass. When I dive down at very high speed the model produces a nice sound....which has nothing to do with a guitar anyway.

Ettore Quenda.it - Jazz Guitar - Chitarra Jazz

[RJVB]

Also, a flat top twists with a vibrating string whereas an archtop is only driven up and down. More of the string’s energy is captured by the flat top.

I think that's not entirely correct. From what I recall, an archtop bridge also gets rocked back and forth by string vibrations, and that's the main driving component of the top. With a fixed bridge this motion is transmitted more efficiently because the bridge is glued to the top and rocked by more than just string friction alone. That's a property of the bridge design which is IMHO independent from the kind of top it sits on.

Slaman makes his Dome model in 2 versions (and lots of wood flavours ^^): with a regular floating bridge/saddle and tailpiece but also with a fixed bridge. You can hear that version on daddystovepipe's YT channel.

[John A.]

How do you arch that composite? I now have another opinion from a luthier (with formal lutherie training) that "you cannot thermo-form a solid top" (i.e. arch it using pressure & heat and probably humidity). And yet I thought this is exactly what Daniel Slaman does for his The Dome guitars.

So what's up with this... as a layman I find it harder to imagine that you could force a solid spruce top into a recurved arch by just glueing it onto an X-brace and the sides, without using heat and steam. I know it's done for classical guitar tops and the backs of certain acoustic guitars too, but those arches are so subtle you have to know they're there...

There are many archtop guitars with pressed solid spruce tops, e.g. Gibson Solid Formed and L-48, the recent Epiphone Century Masterbilt models,
current Guild A-150, various old Kays and Harmonys, many others. In general the sound falls somewhere in between carved and laminate, mostly closer to laminate IME, though a lot of people think the Gibson Solid Formed sounds as good as a carved top.

[RJVB]

The L48 has such a top?! I love the sound of that guitar for fingerpicking - there is one FS in Lithuania that I'd probably have ordered already if I weren't determined on getting a nylon-stringer (and a little more certain about how I'd get along with its neck profile).

EDIT: I suppose the sound will depend on how good the top would sound in a flat-top ... but if a laminate top sounds better after having been arched one might almost expect this to be the case with a solid top too, no?