Official Luthiers Forum!

A lot of people have asked for info about these guitars and I am sorry that it took me so long to come forth but shop time is my prime focus now as I am trying to do this as my main means of support.
Anyway, attached you will find as close to a plan as you will probably get from me. It is as big a photo as my camera will take and you should be able to use it to create an accurate (size & shape wise) copy of the guitar I copied.

Here are the dimensions:
Lower bout - 13 1/2"
Upper bout - 9 1/8"
Body Length - 17 13/16"
Depth at neck joint - 3 1/8"
Depth at Butt - 3 9/16"
Sound hole - 3 5/8"
Scale - 24.9" Note: the original had a scale of somewhere near 25" but it was hard to tell since the neck had been folded forward into the upper bout and the fingerboard had at some time been replaced as well)
12 fret neck joint

Try to use the stiffest wood you can to resist the potato chip effect in front of the bridge (there may be a reason why they quit building them this way) My red spruce tops typically will end up between .110" and .120".
I cut my braces to a rough tapers cross section on the band saw, 7/16" wide at the base and about 1/16" at the top, the blanks are 3/4" tall then sand the saw marks of using a belt sander which thins then up a little. Then I put a slight radius ~40 ft into the top braces except for the upper bout brace which is flat.
The bridge plate is a piece of spruce ~.120" thick, 1 7/8" wide and 10 1/4" long vertical grain and again, as stiff as you have.
The guitar I started with had no support under the fingerboard extension at all except the one upper bout brace so in total disregard to the grumpy one , I use a pop-cycle style brace. I may change that some day but in trying to keep the guitar as light as possible, that's what I went with.
The back of the original stella had a mild radius across the width of the guitar and a much more radical radius with the grain. I went with my standard 25 ft radius. The back braces are much the same as the top braces and I cut them the same way but radius them accordingly.
Use whatever style neck joint you want, mine is a dovetail as were the old ones. This helps keep the weight down and is a fun joint to do anyway. The headstock is a typical slothead and you can shape it however you see fit as you will no doubt use your favorite width anyway.
These are fun guitars to build but try to keep it looking vintage if you can. I trim mine in various ways and use herringbone purfling a lot by modifying it with colored strips and such or even just using half of the herringbone to make a rope style purfling. I'm doing a style 42 right now on one of my commisioned guitars.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Wow, thank you! The generosity of sharing very specific details on how you build these very cool and wonderful guitars is humbling.

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"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

Man, what a cool guitar that is!!!!

Thanks for the info John, I've been thinking about building one of these for a while now. Mine will have a little different twist to if I can ever get the details worked out in my head.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Wow. Thanks very much, John. I really like those sweet little ol' guitars of yours.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Thx John! definately want to build some ladder braced guitars in the near future!

Glenn

Thank you John. That was very generous of you. I love smaller bodied guitars and will have to give this a try.

Thanks again.

Bob

John, thank you very much! That is extremely generous of you. I think you have some of the best looking little guitars around. Hopefully, I'll get to attend a festival you're showing at just so I get a chance to play one.

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Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

Nice John! If I ever build a steel string, I think this size would interest me greatly. Very nice guitar.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

John,

I saw two of your guitars for sale on Dream Guitars and heard them being played. What an amazing sound from a small instrument. I love the vintage look of these ladder braced guitars you're building now. Maybe some day I can afford one.

Great work, and thanks for sharing.

Rich

John--

Yet one more hearty thanks! I have an old (1920's) Stella parlor that I just dearly love and at some point down the road it will be nice to build a concert to go with her. Your generosity is truly overwhelming!

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

Wow John, very generous of you. I've admired your ladder-braced beauties for a while. No reason now not to build one. Thanks again.

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Jim Womack

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. "
Will Rogers

Just curious - what do these guitars sound like tonally? I only ask because they're braced very similar to the Maccaferri-style D-hole guitars I built, which of course, are bright like a Selmer/Maccaferri.

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Rick Jones
Rochester Hills, MI
http://home.comcast.net/~rajones19

Rick, here is his Reviews page. It has some sound clips. John How Guitars - Sound Clips

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Waddy beat me to it. I particularly like Make my dyin bed.

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"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

Very nice of you John to share this info.
Best of luck in your venture.

John

John,
I'm always impressed how you can make something fairly straight-forward look so special. I love those guitars, and the finish is just beautiful.
Thanks, bro.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

John, you da Man! I was just getting ready to contact you. Thanks for sharing.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

These guitars while not boomy or bass heavy like some larger x-braced guitars are not bright or thin sounding. They are rather well balanced I think. The bass is snappy instead of boomy and the mids and trebles are fat and full. I'll try to upload a tune that one of my clients recently sent me. I have a dialup connection though so I'm not at all sure it will work. Be patient with this recording though because the first 15 or so seconds are silent, not sure why he did that and I have lost my audio editing software.
http://www.johnhowguitars.com/sounds/Horizons.mp3

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

John, very many thanks for your generocity in posting this. You know what I think of your guitars, especially these little ladder braced one. It's all been saved to my computer, for future use. Again many thanks.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

John,

That's a recipie for a real tasty pie Thanks. Your little ladder braced guitars are a real inspiration.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Hi John, great work as usual.

whats up with the bridge plate, is that spruce with rosewood inlayed for the strings to bear up against?

aint never seen that before! very cool.

Matt

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Having fun building guitars

John I'll e-mail you a trimmed version.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.