Official Luthiers Forum!

As you are all suffering "photo withdrawal symptoms" I thought I'd post a few of the second Weissenborn style guitar I am making. This is for my daughter Martha's 21st birthday present and needs to be finished by 9th Feb . Here it is with the box closed and bound - lots of sanding and scraping still to do. It's a bit of a Salsa/fruit&nut guitar. Salasa: the top is some pale Cuban Mahogany, the peg head inlay is Old Rio rosewood as will be the bridge. Fruit&nut: the back and sides are English cherry from a neck blank Russell gave me, and the peghead and bindings are English walnut. The fretboard will be ebony.

It is slightly deeper bodied than the first one I made and it's the first time I have used Shane's Lutz for bracing. It works just the same as Euro spruce and tapping the top makes me excited for when it is strung up. Here's the top bracing:



And the closed box:

_________________
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

yeah, I noticed the deeper body..is it slightly wider at the bottom bout, too?

VERY VERY NICE!!!!

Ahh, that English cherry is lovely. Is that a four-piece back?

I am gonna get to work on thicknessing and stickering my cherry when I get the new japanese waterstones tommorow and planer guide.

Looks awesome Dave! You are becoming a wise...er I mean weiss King!
Shane

_________________
Canada

Dang Dave! That looks great!

I want to build one of those too - what plan did you use?

-Mark

_________________
Pullman, WA

The more I know, the more I know I don't know.

trippguitars.com
OR
Find me on Facebook

Sam,

Actually it's a 5 piece back. The neck blank cut down to 5 pieces - 2 for the sides leaving 3 for the back. So the back has one long piece up the middle and the other 2 pieces cut in half with the 2 pieces going on either side of the centre one. Fun Funny thing is though out of force of habit I put a spruce strip down the middle . The cherry looks (and sounds) nice. Hopefully it will pop up nicely with Z-poxy.

The lower bout is about the same width as the other but it's a slightly more "curvy" shape on the upper bout. Also they look different until the fingerboard goes on somehow.

Shane,

Thanks but there are much better builders of these things than me out there. They are really fun to build and fabulous to play as well. Rob Anderlink has a great website with video lessons and tab.

Mark,

I used the De Faoite plans - I made my own. I could probably draw them up for you if you are interested.

_________________
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

Thanks Dave,
Looks like another winner!
Let us know how you think it compairs to the first one.

Also, any reason why you would not make a Weissenborn with a spruce top?

Thanks,
Wade

_________________
Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

Very nice Dave!

_________________
Support the OLF! Bookmark our STEWMAC link Today!
Lance@LuthiersForum.com

lovely work Dave, you're a champ!!!!

Wade,

As Todd says, spruce is used on Weiss-type guitars and modern builders such as Lance White of Lazy River Guitars makes a Spruce Walnut one. For my first one I wanted a more bluesy sound and had to use wood I had available and used Sapele. I was going to do Martha's with a Lutz top from Shane but she is a huge Ben Harper and John Butler fan and wanted the bluesy sound too so I'm using some Cuban Mahogany I had. One day I'll do a spruce topped one. Spruce gives a more "mellow" sound. There are some sound clips here of different Weiss woods.

Todd,

I used ordinary reverse kerfed linings in the neck. What I have done on both though is to use off-cuts of cf rods from neck inserts to make zig-zag patterns, routing out pockets in the linings and epoxying them in - not a great picture but you should be able to see what I mean:



I think of the neck a bit like a box-girder, and most of the strength is needed to stop the strings pulling it in on itself, so paid most attention to the upper bout bracing and hoped these cf rods would give stiffness in the right place for little weight. I probably should have done the same in the bottom of the neck - putting cf rod zig-zags there as well. You could also put cf rods across the neck sides I suppose like kite-spars. The fretboard is part of the neck strength as well so although I thought about using lighter more figured woods, I choose ebony in both cases. I think the trick with these guitars is to get them as light as you can but give them strength in the right places. I think modern building techniques will help a lot - I think from looking at plans of the old ones that they were overbraced. Time will tell of course but so far so good.

For the fingerboard I left the fret markers out at the 3rd fret and the two 12th frets and drilled through and used cocktail sticks to position and clamped as shown in the photo. I decided to use hhg as I thought of the fb as an acoustic coupling brace so the trickiest bit was getting the timimg right so that the hhg didn't gel on me. I probably should have added 2 smaller clamps at the soundhole end- one on each side:


Lance and Serge - thanks.

_________________
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

Neato!!!!!

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Dave, you are amazing! Your as bad as Hesh you seem to be able to just get them made, I take longer trying to decide on the purfling (ask Russell) than you do to build a guitar! I love the idea of the Cuban top that should be a beautiful sounding weiss, you have a very lucky daughter, she'll treasure it.

I like the idea of using the cherry neck blank for back and sides. I've got 8 of those blanks from the same tree of Andy's sitting in my stash, Andy cut them oversize too (5"x 1.5"x 45")so that I could use them for V-joints but I think one of them is going to be sacrificed to make a guitar. Don't you just love it a cherry B&S set for ?9!

Dave you are such an inspirational and out of the box builder, I really look forward to your post.

Colin

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

[QUOTE=Colin S] Dave, you are amazing! [/QUOTE]

I totally agree.

[QUOTE=Colin S] Dave you are such an inspirational and out of the box builder, I really look forward to your post.
[/QUOTE]

Boy howdy, me too. Dave, your weissesses look great.
You appear to be really enjoying what you do.

You've got a lucky daughter!

SteveSteve Kinnaird39106.9618402778

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Nice work, Dave! If it sounds anywhere near as good as your first one, you've got a winner! Might we get a sound clip with this one, too?

Will locals be seeing the "Wailing Whites" duo performing soon?

Very Cool. When you are done, we need a sound clip of this instrument!!!
Andy

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Dave -- what Steve Kinnaird said!

All the best in meeting your target Feb 9th completion date -- your daughter is one lucky gal.

Dave
Somehow I missed this post. Great looking Weiss. Beautiful use of on hand materials. Excellent workmanship as has become expected from you.

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498