Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since I've been around here. I too had to unplug and
focus on life outside the 'puter. I've finally gotten around to finishing up
the Cedar/Bubinga 7 string archtop I've talked about in the past.
Somewhere there is a post here with pix of the rim.....

Anyway, here are a couple of shots of the body after the finish. I'll post
pix later this week of the finished product. BTW, that is the cedar top
plate. I'll post pix of the back plate in a while.


From the lower bout


From the upper bout(sort of)

Chip

Chip

I like that very elegant look, lovely finish

Chip, I remember that rim, the guitar looks fantastic! What made you select cedar for the top? I'm not very well versed in the arch top world, but Ive only ever hear of spruce tops.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Lance,

Spruce is the de facto standard for archtops. I am always striving to be
different. The Cedar was originally meant for a nylon string archtop
experiment a la Benedetto or Moll or Carruth, etc. However, after hearing a
7 string (low B) played I had to have one. Thus the Bubinga/Cedar mix. I am
excited to get it strung up. I'm hoping it will have the same warmth a cedar
top classical or flat top has.

Chip

Ok kiddies,
Here are two shots of the back plate. The skunk stripe is Curly Maple.
The Bubinga was extremely tough to carve. The back plate took about 3
weeks to carve.

Chip



From lower bout



From upper bout (sort of)

Chip,

I can see 2 side ports, but don't see any f-holes or soundhole. I have seen flattops without soundholes, but can't remember seeing an archtop without them. Have you built this way before?

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Nope. This is an experiment. I read about Bill Moll making an archtop
without sound holes. I don;t know how his guitar turned out, but it sounded
cool. I'll try it with just sound ports first. If it doesn't sound good, I'll break
out the rotozip :)

If anyone has had any success/failures with this, I'd be interested to hear
about it.

Chip