-
Incoming in 2 months. A year will have been the time. Well worth it. An acoustic archtop with 8 strings, fanned frets, a cello end pin, a Barbera contact pickup. It’s going to be special. I’m going to call it La Sierra, in honor of al the wonderful places I intend to play it.
Builder is Erich Solomon. A pleasure to deal with it. He’s pretty excited by this project, too.
-
04-01-2023 02:28 PM
-
Side view
-
Erich on the specs
The top is heat treated (torrified) European spruce from Switzerland (Welcome to Tonewood Switzerland - We live where the spruce trees grow...), the back and sides are curly Claro walnut from Oregon, the neck is quartersawn hard maple from the Northeast, ebony board from Africa. Adirondack spruce x-brace.
It is an 8 string 16” non-cutaway acoustic archtop guitar with fanned frets. 28” baritone scale on bass, 24.75” Gibson scale on treble side, w 8th fret perpendicular. Compound conical fretboard radius of 10” at nut and 16” at bottom of fretboard and flattening out to about a 21” radius at the bridge.
Hollow carbon fiber tube “spike” that screws off.”
-
The guitar has small installed magnets to hold the truss rod cover
-
What is this you may ask? Erich explains: “It is a guide for carving your neck tomorrow. I plotted out the math to determine the correct neck cross section profiles for the first, third, fifth, seventh, and tenth fret. So when I am carving the neck, I can use this to visually check the profile as I round over the neck.”
-
Past Pics of the fingerboard in process
-
Prior pic of the body getting a coat of shellac
-
Originally Posted by NSJ
The Claro Walnut you’ve spec’d for the back and sides is lovely. Did you select it for aesthetics or is there also a sonic quality you’re seeking?
AKA
-
Originally Posted by AKA
Some info on the headstock, from Erich:
”Had to make a wider jig to accommodate cutting the rabbet for the neck extension. Headstock has double overlap “ears” glued on for additional peghead strength and stability. It is hard to tell, but the headstock is pitched about 8 degrees unsquare to the fretboard to account for the slanted nut. The geometry was challenging to figure out, and in the end, I had to just trust and joint what I believed the correct angles were and hope that I left enough thickness at the headstock and neck junction, as I did not originally plan to slant the headstock. I think that I just barely made it, and only because I left a little extra material when I cut the blank. Everything from here should be straight forward, I am gluing the neck extension on now and will put the truss rod in today as well. Then it really will start looking like a neck pretty quickly!:”
-
This will be a truly custom instrument. A one of a kind. I hope she proves to be an inspiration to your playing.
-
Carbon fiber tube for the end pin
-
Originally Posted by Stringswinger
-
Originally Posted by NSJ
-
Originally Posted by pcjazz
-
Originally Posted by NSJ
There shouldn't be a problem with a 9 gauge string tuned to A4 on a smaller 24.75” Gibson scale.
A very nice looking and unusual guitar.
-
Update-Guitar getting French polished next week will cure for 2 mote weeks thereafter . Final work being done on tailpiece, bridge and other bits . Will have a special Barbera pickup made up of two pickups added . This instrument will be special -there will literally be nothing else like it in the world in terms of uniqueness.,one of a kind.
from Erich-
“I had a friend of mine custom machine the “fingers” of the tailpiece. Each string has its own finger. The fingers are different lengths to mirror the slant of the bridge and will connect to the tailpiece at the butt of the guitar. It is a staight line string path from the tailpiece to the tuners. The strings feed directly into the bottom of the fingers.“
-
So guitar should be ready to ship soon in a couple of weeks. Here’s the tailpiece, pretty much one of a kind, ain’t no tailpiece I’ve seen quite like this one: designed for a multi-scale fanned fret guitar. You can also see the carbon fiber cello endpin attached to the guitar.
I think this is gonna be a special guitar. Gotta thank Roger P (who used to post here, regularly) for the impetus for this guitar. He sold me his Solomon a few years back, to help finance his 1927 L5. He regretted selling it, in hindsight, and tried to buy it back from the person I sold it too, I think. That didn’t work, so he got Erich to build him a new guitar.
This is gonna be a great guitar, a one-of-a-kind.
-
Wow.
-
A very special instrument, inspiring just to look at.
-
-
Originally Posted by Hammertone
It’s a very special guitar, for sure. Hell, Roger got his dream guitar that everyone wants (1927 L5) and STILL lamented that loss. Thankfully, I’m not as sentimental about guitars (I have two very special ones for sale right now), especially 6 string guitars.
I know you have a great appreciation for Erich and his work. He’s apparently going to be moving back to Alaska at some point. He makes archtops that can emulate flat tops and still be arch tops. Pretty rare.
-
We are in the STRETCH RUN NOW!!!!
From Erich:
”It is not finished yet...sounds very nice overall for just getting strung up, very promising! They always sound young and brash for the first couple of days...”
As to work still to be done:
”No voicing, just dialing in the action. I don’t sand and polish the top until that is done. I have a dummy saddle in the bridge for now while I do a basic set up. It will get replaced by the Barbera transducer at the end. The guitar has loads of sustain and seems well balanced. Intonation is great even with the dummy bridge. Very pleased with it at this point, will only get better! ”
-
Are you going to use a resonator box a la Paul Galbraith, et al?
-
Originally Posted by Cunamara
Basically my guitar collection will eventually be only 8 string guitars played with cello end pins:
Victor Baker electric archtop
Brahms classical guitar made by Martin Woodhouse (he made Galbraith’s new guitar and inherited David Rubio’s equipment)
Victor Baker fanned fretless telecaster
Erich Solomon acoustic arch top
I’m not sure what else I would need.
-
I know nothing about fanned fret guitars, so this question comes out of that place of ignorance. Your post says that the radius of the fanning is centered around the eighth fret; why there and not the 12th fret? I would expect, perhaps erroneously, that intonation would be better if the 12th fret was the midline of the radius being used to lay out the fanning, so that it's symmetrical across the length of the fingerboard.. Erich Solomon went along with this idea and he's a master, so your thinking must be more correct than mine.
Galbraith's playing is some of the most astonishing classical guitar I have ever heard. His "Allamande" recording is just stunningly beautiful, both in terms of the playing and the quality of the recording.
Is the Bud 6 Really That Good?
Today, 02:33 PM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos