Rosewood sides&back on archtop, anyone?

[kambor]

Hello! I've been looking for another archtop for a while, and I'm curious that I've never seen a rosewood sided&backed one. Classical and steel acoustic guitars have those kind of woods, but anyone knows why archtops don't?

The only reason I can think of is not being able to find thick enough rosewood planks to carve, or being pricey, but if they made furniture with it, I can't imagine not being able to make a guitar...

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I don't know. Maple is the standard back and the sides are what, maple or mahogany? I do love the look of rosewood on a flat top.

[mr. beaumont]

Funny, doesn't even seem to be used in laminate archtops. It's also funny that this is something I've never questioned...

So what would a big old archtop with a Carved Spruce top and rosewood back and sides sound like anyway?

[JohnW400]

I found this at archtop.com under a Bacon and Day model in their archives. Don't know if it's true or not.

Gibson, Epiphone, D'Angelico and others did use Brazilian rosewood in their archtops, but sparingly, confining it to fingerboards, headplates and other decorative areas of the instrument. The wood is notoriously hard and brittle, so carving an arched back would be extremely laborious and unusually hard on the tools. More to the point, carving an arched back demands a rough plank at least a full inch deep. As several flat backs could be sawn from such a slab, carving an arched back of Brazilian rosewood would have been absurdly expensive. (In fact CF Martin did build a very few Brazilian archtops, but only with flat backs,examples of which can fetch over $10K on the vintage market.)

[Hammertone]

There are a few old Regal archtops from the 1930s floating around with rosewood rims and backs. I don't remember if these were pressed laminates or pressed solid wood.

The Hofner Model 465 16" archtop came with an arched, laminated rosewood back and laminated rosewood rims. It was made from the early 1950s until the late 1960's. A few other West German shops also had archtop guitars during this timeframe with laminated rosewood backs and rims, along with a few with laminated rosewood top plates.

Wenzel Rossmeisl used rosewood on at least one of his early 1950s Berlin-label flat-back Roger Junior archtop guitars. The rims would have been solid, the back laminated.

[kambor]

carving an arched back demands a rough plank at least a full inch deep. As several flat backs could be sawn from such a slab, carving an arched back of Brazilian rosewood would have been absurdly expensive. (In fact CF Martin did build a very few Brazilian archtops, but only with flat backs,examples of which can fetch over $10K on the vintage market.)

Thanks for the info John. Judging from the examples given by the guys, it seems that the only problem is price. With current techniques for lamination, it's strange that nobody has come with a production model with rosewood. The weight of tradition I guess...

Maybe Brazilian rosewood was (is) brittle, I don't know. Maybe that's why rims have those vertical reinforcements in order to stop cracks from extending the whole rim if they ever happen. There are other rosewoods and dark woods, and they can look classy (I think) on an archtop.

If anyone has more information (maybe an uncle working from Gibson since 1940, lol)...

[Jabberwocky]

The archtop guitar is derived from the violin, cello and double-bass family. I guess the construction techniques and materials carried over into the archtop world. Also, carved rosewood back and sides would make it heavy.

I believe Chris Forshage made one for Roger Placer. If you do a search on Youtube, you will find an ergonomic archtop guitar, made with bent rosewood sides and back with a carved spruce top. Here is a write-up : Lead Up to the Forshage Acoustic Guitar.

[kambor]

Nice Jabberwocky! A little weird shape for my tastes, but nice guitar!

Talking about weight, wouldn't a mahogany weight way more than a rosewood guitar? I've seen mahogany archtops before so to me that wouldn't be too much of an issue...

[bborzell]

I had a mandolin made from cocobolo rosewood. It is a flat back with an induced arch spruce top. In the "tone wood" circles it is considered one of the darker and warmer woods. For many luthiers, it is a replacement for Brazilian rosewood which is endangered. For other luthiers, rosewoods get passed over because of allergic reactions while working the wood.

While there are hundreds of rosewoods, relatively few are suitable for building instruments from both a tone and workability standpoint. On the latter topic, some rosewoods have a waxlike property that makes for very short lived sanding materials. Grains are often more open sometimes making for a finished look that appears less "finished" than the tighter grain found in maple, for example. Spider checks are not uncommon in rosewoods.

The reason I choose cocobolo rosewood for the mandolin was tone. I wanted a darker baroque like sound for playing Bach pieces. The mandolin delivered on that count very nicely.

[kambor]

Nice to know bborzel!

Indeed, rosewood tends to have an open grain, so another reason for big companies not to use it (it consumes more finishing time).

[jderrick333]

Hi Everybody. I'm new to this forum and am enjoying it already. I am a hobby builder who has studied a fair amount of archtop designs. I find many builders are extremely rooted in tradition and stick to the standard spruce top and maple back and sides. That combination makes a great sounding instrument, but I enjoy experimenting with different woods and have used, maple, walnut, koa, and padauk for backs and sides. I've thought about using rosewood, but as others have pointed out its pretty spendy, and starting with a 1" thickness there is a lot of waste carved away. I remember feel badly about that with my koa guitar. Here's my bear claw spruce top with koa back and sides.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Way cool, jderrick333, and welcome aboard. I like your tip of the hat to lute sound holes.

[jderrick333]

Thanks Big Daddy!

[kenbennett]

That's a pretty guitar 333.

Many archtops have been made from mahogany. It's a nice carving wood.

Poplar has been used for violins. It works well, but doesn't look all that good.

[kambor]

That's a pretty guitar 333.

Many archtops have been made from mahogany. It's a nice carving wood.

Poplar has been used for violins. It works well, but doesn't look all that good.

Have you tried any mahogany back archtop (that wasn't covered by mountains of poly finish)? How would you define its sound compared to maple?

[jderrick333]

@ kenbennett - I'd like to try carving a mahogany back. I bet it does carve very nicely. Have you found the tone to be warmer, maybe a little less punchy than maple? Beautiful guitars on your website BTW.

@ kambor - poly isn't a typical finish for an archtop. Normally they have something much thinner like nitrocellulose lacquer, or french polished shellac, to allow the top and back plates to move more freely.

[kambor]

jderrick I meant that I've seen sometimes archtops made of bent mahogany (maybe to reduce costs), and lower cost instruments usualy come with poly finish.

I've been curious about this hagstrom HL-550 because I can't imagine the sound that will come out of something like that (never seen an all mahogany).

[jderrick333]

kambor - I see what you mean now. That HL-550 is a nice looking guitar. It says it's Ply Mahogany so I'm not sure how that would sound acoustically. I've typically seen the plywood/laminated woods used on hollowbody electrics to reduce feedback. The HL-550 has a floating pickup used to allow the top to move freely. I'd like to give it a try. So many guitars, so little time.

[cmajor9]

Here's one with spruce and rosewood. I wonder how it would sound... more warm/mellow? No idea about the quality of this particular guitar, however.

Alden Jazz Link Archtop Gitarre mit Humbucker + Piezo | eBay