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This is a 1978 L-34 Lowden small jumbo type guitar. I put up a webpage if you care to take a peek. One bracing shot.








Edited by George Lowden, 19 Feb 2007, just about midnight.

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Bruce,

Wow.

Burnin' the midnight oil, eh?

Link?

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

Gotcha.

Hi Pat. Not bad, just had a nice piece of meat to share with my friends.

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Cool, thanks Bruce

Cheers

Kim

Yep, got me!

What a beaut. Interesting bracing. FP?

Thanks for sharing.

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

That's cool Bruce! Are you doing some work on it? I think you did a pretty good job with the pics.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Thanks for the peek inside Bruce. Tell me, why would a Louden wait till late at night to sneek into your shop? It could come into mine in the daylight, except that it might embarsed to be there.

I had been leaning toward paraboliic braces on my next build. This clinchs it. If its good enough for George Louden it's goood enough for me.

Nice web sight by the way.

Cecil    

Thanks Bruce, that was so cool!

George is a great builder and inovator (and a nice bloke too)

at that stage he'd only been building for a few years, so you have an early one!!

in fact, the guy that taught the evening class I just finished (Sam Irwin) probably worked on that guitar as he was one of Georges original 4 employees.

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Cool, Bruce. How would you describe its sound?

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Yes,Very nice guitar and good pics Bruce!
I would love to play a Lowden someday!
Thanks.............

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Bruce, you didn't happen to take a tracing and get a bracing layout by any chance.....

'cause I'd love to get a copy from ya.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Pat, FP? I don't think so, it appears sprayed but it is a dark amber finish. My friend bought it used from a Norwegian living in the States, so he actually knew little about the guitar specs. Come to think of it Pat, it didn't shine quite like a nitro finish, so it may be french polish. Dunno?

He actually thought the entire top was .240 thick. I convinced him otherwise with a flashlight and mirror. Looking at the soundhole, you could see the nice quarter of the top, but the soundhole reinforcement was seamless and rift sawn, evident only on close examination. What helped me was the photo someone put up recently of an Avalon bracing scheme, the reinforcement soundhole patch was slightly off color to the rest of the top. It's amazing what one can glean from a photograph, that was a good one.

Dave, Not working on it, just in for me to peruse it. Met the owner 7 years ago by phone, bought a Martin 000 he had traded in at Sigler Ft. Smith. Met his son who plays an Avalon, by accident going here to the local college. We were talking guitars and I mentioned knowing a guy with two Lowden. He said, who? and where? Turned out to be his dad. No kidding.

Cecil, Bingo, that was my thought too, Build a Lowden style top and just see what they are really like. This owner says sound men make him turn way down due to it's boominess. Apparently with the parabolic bracing scheme it brings out the bass.

I enjoyed the Lowden visit, but as you all know, guitars is about people. That Dad and Son team really love their music and good instruments. They even had fun playing my wife's Taylor GC and 27 year old cheap Alvarez Dred and even strummed my youngest's starter acoustic a solid top Ibanez dred. Great family.

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Cool Martin, I'll pass that Irwin tidbit along, I'm sure the owner would love to know that. The lable in the guitar, was printed, including George's signature, so those were my thoughts that it was simply produced in his shop. Good looking tone machine. I kind of think the Brazilian appears to be Indian, but didn't want to let him down about that. It definitely had braz overlays on the headstock front and back.

JJ, we were limited on time and the innards were what we were after. I didn't take a single strum, and the owner cut the steel strings and didn't put them back, he got stuck and bled, you know how taking strings off can sometimes vaccinate you.... I did play it a number of weeks ago and it was nice, but there were tons of folks around and noisy, so all I can say, he's a great player and has never let the guitar out of his sight since 1984. I felt privileged just seeing it for the 1 1/2 shop tour. They were rushed for time and left with just four strings on the guitar.

Don, sorry, no tracing of the body or layout, just pics. I'll tell you this though, go search the OLF for the Avalon bracing scheme posted a month or two back, it's basically identical to what I saw in the L-34. From that anyone can get close to a Lowden-scheme. I printed it out then and used it to compare to this one. Great pic whoever posted it. Only one I've ever seen.

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No doubt a great looking guitar but how did it sound?

This was the thread with the bracing. The Avalon top shows the pattern but the shape of the braces is more like in the photo from Frank Fords website and on Bruce's website - George Lowden's famous "dolphin" shape.

Lowden finishes are generally nitro rubbed back by hand between each coat to give that lovely semi-gloss finish. A guitar that early could well have been made by George himself. Best thing is to e-mail him with the photos and serial number.

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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

Funny thing, I was browsing the Lowden forum archives at Yahoo and found this post from George about those earlier guitars (sorry about the line breaks):

********
> Offering a high gloss finish on the new guitars, one has to wonder
> what the difference in tone may be between two otherwise 'identical'
> instruments finished differently...


Interesting question! It takes me back to 1978 when Stephein Delft (
an excellent luthier based then in London) was selling some of my
guitars in his east end "shop". He was used to my guitars and when he
saw one of my gloss finished S 22s ( the same model Pierre Bensusan
chose at that time ... basically what would be now a O-10 but with
figured sycamore bindings and neck laminates) .... and he remarked
about how good the sound was ... how alive ... how played in it
sounded! I had noticed this myself on gloss finished guitars I had
made and eventually I worked out what was happening:

The varnish I used in those days was a polyurethane formulated for
boats ... tough as nails, water clear, slow drying, very difficult to
rub down in between coats ( typically took a couple of hours to flat
down with wet and dry paper used with white spirit) ..... with what I
know now, it was not at all economical, but it certainly did result in
a superior finish in every way. The problem was that the process of
creating a piano type gloss finish involves a wet and dry paper rub
down to flat the varnish- followed by buffing up the surface to a high
gloss using a polishing mop and a mildly abrasive paste. I was just
used to the fact that to achieve a high gloss finish required several
hours of machine buffing. These days it can be done very quickly with
modern finishes and buffing compounds designed for the job, but with
this varnish it was a mammoth job usually ending up with me looking
like I'd been working in a flour mill all day! The buffing process
itself meant that the soundboard of the guitar was subjected to a
vibrating polishing mop for maybe 45 minutes or so and then the rest of
the soundbox for another hour and a half. Basically, the whole soundbox
was vigorously 'vibrated' to an excessive amount. By the time the
guitar was ready for strings it was as loose and free as if it had been
placed in front of a loudspeaker turned UP for days on end.

Actually I would like to see one of those rare gloss finished late
seventies Lowdens to compare the sound now after 26 years or so, but
back then they had the edge.

Some of these days maybe I should design a machine to replicate that
process and see what the effect is! I'm not against gloss finish, but
it's been quite a long time since I have used it, but I do just love
the look of the hand rubbed satin finish,

all the best,

George

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Gosh, that 70s Lowden looks almost as fresh as if it was made a couple of years ago!

the history of Lowden

that guitar was make by George and his 4 mates in Bangor (a quaint seaside town near where I grew up)


if that small rectangular label is blue then it's one of the 100 or so made in that period before the Japanese licence deal in 1980

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From www.frets.com, a Lowden S-23, and thanks Dave for bringing up the thread again, very educational, dolphin braces, huh? Would that be a parabolic dolphin or just a regular one?   



This is an F or O from www.musiciansbuy.com, again thanks Dave for reposting this thread. I totally missed the Frank Ford Foto of the Lowden. I love the way he "used to do" these top bracing pics. He may have lost his scope? Frank?

Martin, this label is cream color, all printed, even George's signature.

Dave, I have the serial number, you got an email address for George? Thanks, bd

Jon, that was an interesting article on George's finish. This one does not have the high gloss, it may just be the hand-rubbed nitro finish he speaks of. Very interesting indeed.

Martin, I'm going to read the History now, thank you for posting it.

Danny V. Sorry, didn't get to play it. The owner ripped off the strings as he was taking it out of the case, no kidding, I didn't hear anything out of this guitar. It'll be back though, I just have a feeling.

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Bruce,

On his website George has gl@georgelowden.com as his contact e-mail so I would try that.

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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

Note: This player has active Fishman Electronics in this guitar. He uses extra light Earthtone Bright Brass Strings on it. I owe him a set of those.

Note Deuce: This is the second straightest neck/fretboard I've ever seen on a guitar. The straightest is Keaggy's new Olson SJ, and yup, Keaggy was using lights on his too, PB though, with onboard electronics.

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Thanks Dave, I'll give him a shout.

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