Santa Barbara Show coming up!
Following up on our last post, we will be at the Santa Barbara Acoustic Instrument Celebration coming up August 25-27. We will be at the beautiful Fess Parker Resort on the beach!
We are really looking forward to it. We went to the first show last year and were so happy to be invited back.
There will be many great instruments and luthiers there, really the best of the best.
To celebrate, we have made 3 new guitars, all based on a 1934 Martin OO that passed through our hands. These guitars are non cut-away and 12 frets to the body. We wanted that 12 fret tone and also that these guitars just be "pure double O".
All three of these have Sitka Spruce tops. This one has a very unique back and side set from Eastern Europe. It is Apple Wood!
It is gorgeous wood, a bit difficult to work but it rewards with a great tone, a density about like Koa, and hence a nice balanced tone.
A nice segmented Apple Rosette and a nice Bloodwood fretboard. We did the binding in Ivoroid.
And here's another one that really sings, lots of overtones and well balanced. It has another back and side set from Eastern Europe, a beautiful spalted Maple set with strong figure. Again this is a very difficult wood to work, but the result is quite stunning. Macassar Ebony binding and Fret Board.
This guitar is great fun to play, and so rewarding with a rich full tone.
These two guitars are steel string instruments with mahogany necks.
The third guitar for this show is a Nylon strung version, still a OO of the same design.
This instrument makes use of Amboyna Burl for the rosette and binding, with its alternating red and tan colors.
The back and sides set is agin an Eastern European Spalted Maple set.
We used high end Irving Sloane tuners with ball bearings at the ends of the barrels for smooth tuning.
The neck is Cedar.
These instruments all feature our laminated spruce top bracing with carbon fiber stiffening.
These are not "X-braced". It has many unique advantages, light and stiff, lots of strong overtones, lots of sustain, and less susceptible to moisture changes, among others.
The backs are "Radial" braced, making for a "Live" back instrument adding to the tone and richness of the sound produced,
We use "compensated nuts and saddles to get intonation spot on up and down the fret board.
We tap tune our instruments every step of the way in order to get the fundamental frequencies of the top and back right where we want them.
Come to see the show, and to enjoy the beach. Santa Barbara is a great town, and this show is gonna be fun!
P.S. We will also have a few more great 6 string and 12 string guitars to show you as well.
Hope to see you there and please come by and we can talk guitars, play guitars, and maybe even sell you one. Failing that, we will be most happy to build you just what you want!
