As promised... my latest archtop (not a Guild)

Squawk

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When I first saw this, I was drawn by the single-piece carved Sitka top. I then initiated a lot of correspondence with the seller, who is the luthier who designed and built it (John Grant) - I was satisfied with his responses, so I decided to go for it figuring the most I would lose is a lot of shipping $$$ as it came from Canada. But I lucked out - this is a keeper.

Both the design and materials are a combination of the traditional and non-traditional - and while it is very different-looking, the feel, sound and precision are excellent. I would go as far to say that it has the best acoustic sound of any of my archtops. The weighting is perfect and overall, the guitar is not as heavy as it looks - maybe even lighter than my X170.

[IMG:799:558]http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k271/squawkman/body.jpg[/img] [IMG:799:590]http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k271/squawkman/back.jpg[/img]














The top is a solid, thick one-piece carved Sitka braced with Sitka, and the back and sides are old growth water salvaged yellow birch that was sitting on the bottom of Lake Huron for at least 100 years. It has an Indian rosewood fret board and ebony pickguard and ebony tailpiece with graphite supports. It also has a 2-way double truss rod; the neck is 3-piece yellow birch. The Benedetto-influenced bridge is thin rosewood and bubinga. With a little bridge adjustment, I achieved perfect intonation. There are multiple body bindings, with the outer binding being maple. The F-holes and pickguard edge are bound as well.


[IMG:800:528]http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k271/squawkman/pup.jpg[/img] [IMG:800:600]http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k271/squawkman/headstock.jpg[/img]


















The pictures above show the nice graining of the top, the multiple bindings, and the floating Attila Zoller pickup. The tone and volume wheels are mounted on the back edge of the pickguard and are just about visible in the photo. There are abalone inlays in several places - abovce you can see inlays on the pickguard, headstock and finger board; the free-shaped headstock is facecd with rosewood and it has Gotoh 510 tuners (these are as good as people say).


[IMG:799:492]http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k271/squawkman/arch_space.jpg[/img]















This photo shows something interesting about this guitar - the protruding top enables fretting higher on the neck than is usual for a non-cutaway joined at the 14th fret. This photo also shows the maple body binding nicely.
 

Jeff

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Sweet piece of art cast in Maple & Spruce. The back is a magnificent pattern match.

Picture this guitar 20 years from now with a nice Amber patina.
 

Squawk

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I am - and I am also picturing my 21 year-old punk rocker having an appreciation of archtops by then should my geezerness take over.

I still can't get over the acoustic projection - I can play it like a folk guitar - it almost drowns out my <sic> singing :)
 

Guildmark

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She's lovely, Squawk! It'd be nice to hear some recordings. What sort of strings does this one use?

The water-salvaged wood caught my attention. I remember reading about a sunken cargo of wood in the Great Lakes from the 1800's or early 1900's (but, of course, I don't remember where- might've been National Geographic). The article talked about the circumstances of the sinking, who had rightful claim to it, difficulty in bringing it up, the value of the wood today, and they specifically mentioned its worth for musical instruments. But there was concern about how long it would take the wood to dry sufficiently. Did your luthier have any background on the lot he used?

I'm also curious to know how extensive the practice is of using recycled tonewoods. A family member has offered me a dining room set made of Brazilian rosewood. It's about 30 years old. I don't have the heart to tell him that I don't like the furniture but that I'd love to arbitrage the wood! There might be enough there for about 20 guitars. But would a luthier be interested? Any thoughts out there?

Guildmark
 

Jeff

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We have a salvage company reclaiming sunken logs from the Lower Columbia river out here. Back in the early logging boom days millions upon millions of logs were floated down the Columbia to mills along the lower river. Some of these logs just plain sunk, quite a few actually.

This company is locating the sunken logs with pretty sophisticated (sonar?) & yanking them off the bottom with a large excavator mounted on a barge. Interesting to watch, lots of power involved.

I doubt there is much in the way of tonewoods, mostly conifers (fir, cedar, hemlock). Most of what they are salvaging is prime lumber by today's standards.
 

coastie99

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Here in N.Z. we have luthiers building electrics from Swamp Kauri.

The Kauri is our biggest native tree; some are quite ancient and absolutely magnificent. Unfortunately, the early settlers felled a great many for boat-building and general purposes.

Swamp Kauri is somewhere beyond 35,000 years old; so called because some cataclysmic event felled the trees and they've lain in peat swamps ever since.

Check this out............

http://www.langcaster.com/
 

Guildmark

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Amazing wood! Fascinating designs! And the headstocks reflect a strong Klingon influence. How much swamp kauri is available? Must be a pretty limited resource, eh?

Guildmark
 

Jeff

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Swamp Kauri is somewhere beyond 35,000 years old

That's my kind of Figured" hardwood. Magnificent .

Interesting the similarities of human behaviour in different parts of the planet. :wink:
 

coastie99

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I don't think that Swamp Kauri is such a limited resource as much as being difficult to find and excavate.

I'm toying with the idea of having a S.K. solidbody made in a double-cut L.P junior shape, with a single Supro p/u. That is, until I learn what the price is likely to be !!
It certainly wont have a headstock like a Langcaster !
 

Guildmark

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Awesome!! I'm very happy to have learned about this, coastie. Here in California we have the giant sequoias. Big trees will cause your jaw to drop. I think your trees down under look like a very close second in size, but they might be older. And, of course, ours are in the mountains rather than the bogs. Ya'll take good care of 'em!

Guildmark
 

Squawk

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Mark -

John Grant suggested electric strings over bronze as the Zoller is a magnetic pickup. The guitar came with flat 11s - it was a display model for a store in Calgary - so while the guitar is perect, the strings were somewhat tarnished, so I replaced them Thomastik Jazz 10s to get a little more bendability. Acoustically, the 11s sounded better with fuller bass; electrically, the 10s are better as the bass was too boomy. As I doubt I will be plugging it in much, next set will be Thomastik Spectrum 11s.

I am not into recording at this time, but hope to do some in the near future.

Coastie - that swamp Kauri is something else!

Mark - I remember as a kid visiting the Museum of Natural History in NYC - one of my favorite exhibits (next to the dinosaurs, of course) was a giant cross-section slice of a sequoia.
 

Mr. P ~

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I remember reading about when divers found a large quantity of logs on the bottom of lake Huron and what they thought they would be used for.

Glad to know someone with an instrument made from that wood.
 
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Nice looking guitar - the carve around the perimeter of the top and back looks great. Semi Moselely did something similar with his mosrite solid bodies.

Funny that folks should be mentioning guitars built of reclaimed kauri pine. In a previous career as a boatbuilder I had the opportunity to work with some old growth kauri during a planking repair and it is a lovely wood - incredible for marine applications with excellent stiffness and strength to weight ratios as well as reasonably good decay resistance. Something not widely realized in the US is that another name for Kauri is Agathis - yep what they make Squiers out of. Prolly the agathis they are harvesting in Malaysia these days in not so old though.
 

Jeff

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ZERO GUITARS

All this talk about the ingenmjuity required to obtain icreasingly scarce tonewoods caused me to think of the aluminum guitars Gene Nygard makes.

Gene is the guy I go to when I need something repaired. He reset the neck on the F20 & set up the DV 62 for me. Nice job both times.

Gene may be ahead of his time, aluminum is not particularly appealing to me but perhaps the guitars of the future. Think of it, 250 years in the future, old geezers on the Aluminum Guitar "forum" discussing the advantages old vintage aluminum guitars, having matured & fully opened up.

I seem to remember his guitars go for 3500 or so +.

http://www.zeroguitars.com/newzeros.html
http://www.zeroguitars.com/zeroguitars.html

[img:710:236]http://www.zeroguitars.com/images/710_Lefty_Zero.jpg[/img]
[img:675:246]http://www.zeroguitars.com/images/675_00480002.jpg[/img]
 
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