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I still consider myself to be kinda new at all this. I've been building guitars for about a year and a half now. This one is my eighth build and is my best yet, in terms of both appearance and sound quality.

Why a 10-string? Well, I owned a Ramirez 10-string for many years, so I was already familiar with them from a player's point of view. Secondly, the fellow who bought my Ramirez asked me if I would consider building him another.    

Okay, being that I've never built one before, I decided to build two, using the first as a test-bed so that if I ran across any difficulties with the first build, they would hopefully be resolved by the time I got to the second. This strategy has worked well. The second 10-string is coming together more smoothly than the first, although I really didn't run into any significant problems with it.

Here are a few links to images of the guitar:

http://michaelmcbroom.com/g8complete1.jpg

http://michaelmcbroom.com/g8complete2.jpg

http://michaelmcbroom.com/g8bridge4.jpg

http://michaelmcbroom.com/g8headstock6.jpg

http://michaelmcbroom.com/g8purfling1.jpg

Materials:

soundboard: "Kermodie" spruce
back/sides: Bolivian rosewood
neck: Honduran mahogany with an ebony center reinforcement strip
finish: french polish
nut and saddle: Corian (try finding bone in these sizes)
tuners: Schaller (2 sets cut between 2nd and 3rd, 8th and 9th strings)
strings: Hannabach high tension

The tuning is A B C D E A D G B E with the low A being an octave below the open 5th string.

The guitar has been strung up for about three hours now. It has very good volume, bright and clear highs and resonant basses. Honestly, it sounds even better than I'd hoped.

Yeah, I'm stoked. Which is why I just had to share.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Very Nice Michael, really nice inlay and detailing, It looks Class

Awesome Michael!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Looks great Michael. Not being a classical player the width of the neck scares me . Very nice job with the tuners, they look like they were shipped as 5 on a side straight from the factory. Now I'm going back and browse the rest of your pictures.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

Great job Michael!

I think we would be at about the same stage in our building. I have also been building for 1 1/2 years and am just finishing up number 8. However I have to agree with Don that the neck on your guitar scares me as well. Some day I will have to try building one and than see if I can play it.

great work

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
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Thanks, guys. To me this is high praise considering the caliber of builders who frequent this forum.

For those of you who find the extra neck width scary, it isn't so bad. Classical players, as you probably know, don't hook their left thumb around the neck. So a wider neck is not necessarily an impediment to playing.

Now, I've always found a 10-string to be, well, not more difficult to play than a 6-string, just I guess more awkward for the left hand, and yes, more complex for the right. It does take some getting used to. When I first got my Ramirez many years ago, I remember it took me about two weeks to get used to all those extra strings. After that, it wasn't so bad.

In recent years, there has been a lot more activity among the 10-string community. Now there are quite a few arrangements available that didn't exist when I was an active player of mine. And while I wrote a few arrangements for 10-string, some were unfortunately so difficult I never made much headway with them. Nowadays, though, the prospects look better.

I will probably keep this guitar, and use it as something to show future clients as an example of what they can expect.

Thanks again for your encouraging words!

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Michael,

Beautiful! Only building 1.5 years and you can build that!? Wow. Where the heck do you find tuners for a 10 string? What strings do you use on the lower 4? Just curious.

Great job.

Jeff

Hey Jeff,

I used standard Hauser-style Schallers for the tuners, and cut them. I have a milling machine, so I was able to control the cutting stage with a decent level of precision.

For strings, I bought a set of Hannabach. Seems most 10-string players prefer Hannabach. I've used the LaBellas before, and didn't really care all that much for them.

The basses last quite a while, and what one ends up doing is changing out the top 6 strings several times before getting around to replacing the lower four. Hannabachs are available in singles, fortunately, so a 10-string player can buy them as s/he needs them. I've also heard that D'Addario makes strings for the 10-string, the basses which also are available singly, which is good news. I prefer D'Addario Pro Arte classical strings, to be honest, and I look forward to trying a set for the 10-string in the future.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Beautiful work Michael!

Great work Michael.
The neck looks very well executed. What was the final thickness at the first fret?
And, what in the world is that saddle made from? Is that bloodwood or padouk, or what?

John

Wow! Very impressive.

Michael,

That's a great looking guitar! I've been a classical player much longer than a builder. I'd really like to try a 10-string someday. Could you tell me where you find arrangements and music written for a 10-string? Do you use lute music written for a 7-10 string lute?

Cheers!

John

Hey guys,

The final neck thickness at the first fret is right at 3/4".

The saddle is actually made from Corian. I couldn't find a single piece of bone that long. As for the bridge, it's padauk. I've built three classicals so far using padauk bridges, and every one has come out sounding great. I want to say it's Smallman (the Aussie luthier of lattice bracing frame) who now uses padauk exclusively for his classical bridges, but it might be one of the other Aussies. Anyway, I'm sold on it as a bridge material.

Consider this -- I have found that a standard 6-string classical bridge made from EIR weighs from 26 to 30 grams. The padauk bridge I made for this 10-string weighed 16.8 grams. Less mass glued to the top means less energy required to overcome the mass's inertia to get the top moving. Now padauk is not as hard as rosewood, but it is pretty hard, and has been working pretty well so far in my builds.

Here's a shot showing a roughed out 6-string bridge I made from EIR next to the finished 10-string bridge made from padauk.

http://michaelmcbroom.com/g8bridge3.jpg

The EIR bridge weighs 28 grams, and the padauk bridge weighs less than 17 grams.

As for arrangements and music for the 10-string, the situation is improving. There are more and more arrangements from the instrument that are becoming available, plus it remains a popular instrument for lute transcriptions.

Here's a link to a collection of Bach lute suite music, which transfers very well to the 10-string:

http://www.kb.dk/elib/noder/rischel/RiBS0964.pdf

Sylvius Leopold Weiss is another popular composer of lute music -- he was a contemporary of Bach and a brilliant composer and lutenist. His compositions work well on 10-string.

Also, visit Janet Marlow's site:

http://www.janetmarlow.com/

She's one of the best known 10-string players at this time, and she even has jazz arrangements that she does with her 10-string.

Best,

Michael
Michael McBroom38530.9995486111

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Live to Play, Play to Live

sweet! I doubt anyone is gonna be wrapping their thumb over the top
while playing :)

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

i don't think even richie havens could maage it!crazymanmichael38531.0727662037

Awesome, tho the other guys a right the width of the neck is scary, I'm flatout trying to make something that sounds like music on six strings. Imagine four more strings to deal with! I'd need more fingers

On shore again for a couple of days.

Michael, fabulous guitar, I've got to build me one of those. The width of the fingerboard doesn't worry me too much, even though I'm only mainly a steel string player. I do (attempt) to play the 10-course lute, which has an even wider fretboard for its 19 strings! There is plenty of music out there for the 10-lute, but be warned it is not a straight swap. The normal tuning for the 10-course lute is C'C, D'D, Eb'Eb, F'F, G'G, Cc, FF, AA, dd, g, and even then the gut frets are sometimes moved to change the temper, and there are many other tunings used. Much like modern dropped tunings for today's guitar styles.

I regularly play with a group of early music players at the Royal College of Music in London and have access to the music library, when I get back to England I'll try and sort out some music for you if you like.

Colin

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

Hey Colin,

Sure, I'm always interested in finding more musical repetory for this instrument. I can pass the info along to other 10-string players I know as well.

I agree with you about the tunings. Some of the 10-string players I know have gotten pretty creative in that regard. Me, I'm muddling along so far with just altering the tunings of the bass strings. So far that's working pretty well with some Bach lute pieces I've been playing through.

You =should= build one. The 10-string has a unique sound, and I for one, like it. :)

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

very nice.... very nice.

Well done 10 string...I have built 8 string but have been dieing for a reason to build a 10 string.

I have played alot on 8 string and the biggest difference with a wider neck is that the tendency is to want to center the hand on the middle of the neck instinctly...with a 8-10 string you feel funny playing on mostly the 1-6 strings but wow the ring you get from the bottom strings...they can sustain a tone while you are playing a descant (line) on top of it.

To put into steel string thik...think of having the low end sound of a baritone guitar like Linda Manzer's but with the clear piano like sound of a classical's #1-4 strings...there are alot of guitar players and crossover Lute players that are playing and writing for 10 string so it opens up alot of very interesting tonal possibilities.