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TL:DR - I built a small bodied archtop acoustic.

I'm a big fan of archtop acoustics. I have a 1940 Harmony archtop with a pressed mahogany top that sounds lovely, but I wanted something a bit different. I wanted something with a thicker solid carved arch, x-bracing, and a different tonal fingerprint. I was planning on building a copy of the Epiphone Olympic that David Rawlings plays, which is a pretty small body for an archtop. It has a 13.5 inch lower bout, spruce top, and mahogany back and sides. When I started looking around for some appropriate wood, my dad (who builds classical guitars as a hobby) told me he had just bought a bunch of reclaimed redwood that was used as a brine vat at the Gedney pickle factory. It's incredibly stable, has a fantastic tap tone, and is nearly perfectly quarter-sawn.

So, for the sake of science and my own curiosity, I set off to use redwood for the top, back, and sides of the body. I hadn't played any acoustics with redwood tops, but I had heard it described as having the darker tone of cedar with the volume of spruce. This appealed to me greatly. A few archtop builders are using redwood for tops, so it seemed worth a shot. I haven't seen anyone use redwood for the back and sides, but couldn't see any reason not to.

I manage a Ma & Pa music store and take care of all the guitar/string instrument repairs, and one of my job perks is being able to work on my own projects between customers' instruments, so I was working on this on-and-off since sometime around October 2013. The body is 14 inches at the lower bout, a similar footprint to a OOO flattop, 3 inch side depth, the top is about a 1/4 inch in the center and graduates out to around 1/8 inch in the recurve. The back is a little thicker in the center at 1/2 inch and graduates down to a little less than a 1/4 inch. The neck block and tail block are laminated cut-offs of redwood from the top and back plates and quite a bit larger than they really needed to be, but I wanted extra stability. The braces are some very well aged Engelmann spruce from a discarded half of a cello top (that will be turned into an F style mandola in the future). For the neck, I used a nice fat piece of walnut and East Indian rosewood for the fretboard. 25 1/2 inch scale, 12 fret neck joint, blah blah blah.

Pictars? Yes, a few pictars (from an iPhone with a dirty lens, apparently).















And a link-y to the photo bucket album if you want to see more pictures: http://s5.photobucket.com/user/GuitarSl ... ry/archtop

Now, how does it sound? Pretty bloody amazing. It has a ridiculous dynamic range, a lot more sustain and low end than I was expecting, and projects like crazy. I still need to put the final finish on it, which will be french polished shellac, but I'm enjoying having it strung up in the white for now. Once I get the final finish on it and figure out exactly how to play it, I'll get something proper recorded.

GuitarSlim101 wrote:TL:DR - I built a small bodied archtop acoustic.

That looks fantastic.

Very nice build dude. I love the warm sounds of an old style arch top. Looking forward to hearing clips of that.

That is just beautiful!!!!

Very Nice!

All righty then, french polish is complete. Still playing around with the bridge design and materials, but it's nearly there.

That finished up real nice dude. Any clips? Would love to hear it. What's the next build on the agenda?

Thanks. No clips yet, but I'll try to get something recorded soon.

As far as what's next in the build pile, the next build will be a headless fanned fret 7 string for a friend, then an f-style mandola for myself, something loosely ES-175ish, and a OOO-18 and OOO-28 using a couple pieces of Carpathian spruce I have sitting around. I'll probably build a few electric guitars to sell at the store, too.

that is beautiful. i think i'm so great because i can make a ten component fuzz from a vero layout but you are really doing it. i admire your talent and perseverence. the results are a testimony to your dedication. would be nice to hear it.

That's awesome man!

Thanks, guys. So, I recorded a quick little ditty. I don't have my decent recording stuff easily accessible at the moment, so I just went straight in to the sound card on an older macbook pro, so there's a fair amount of white noise. Kind of adds to the charm, maybe? Makes it sound a bit like an old Django recording perhaps? Yeah. That's what I'll tell myself. Anyways, the tune is "Dance On Sunday" by Franz Casseus, playing is a bit sloppy as I managed to whack my fretting hand on an end table a couple weeks ago and it's still a bit buggered, but it sounds decent enough. Added a bit of reverb, EQ is flat, but the mic I used is a bit on the dark side, which works nicely with this guitar.

https://soundcloud.com/joeroszko/dance-on-sunday

Sounds fantastic.

Sounds really awesome dude, the playing was nice. Good way to start the day. Thanks

Hey very nice. Nice shape on the f holes, too.

That french polish, can you say more about that? What sort of oil did you use with the shellac, if any? I was thinking of using shellac on an unfinished body I have, and I love to hear whatever pointers you might have to give. How do you like it, now that's it's done? How does it hold up to wear, and how does it feel?

Thanks for all the kind words.

As for the finish, this is the first time I really attempted to do a full, proper french polish on a guitar. I've used shellac on almost every guitar I've made, but I typically either brushed or padded it on in a few thicker coats. My dad taught me the basic principles of french polish about 15 years ago when I was helping him make some furniture, and I've experimented on and off with it since then.

On past guitars, I usually brush on a fairly heavy coat of shellac to fill the pores, sand it down, pad on a couple more coats, wet sand with 600 grit, and then apply a few thin coats in a pseudo french polish fashion , but still end up doing a lot of extra sanding and buffing, then apply some paste wax for added protection. The advantage is that it builds a thicker layer of finish and gives some extra durability, and the wax adds some water resistance.

Since this was intended to be strictly acoustic, I wanted as thin a finish as possible. I used caramel waxy button shellac, dissolved in good quality denatured alcohol. I prefer waxy shellac over dewaxed if I'm not just using the shellac as a base under another finish, and I always mix my own after a few bad cans of premixed shellac lead to much frustration. On this guitar, I began with some alcohol soluble dyes and hand rubbed the burst, then began applying the shellac. I used mineral oil this time, and I've used olive oil and walnut oil in the past. Different oils do lead to slightly different results, but mineral oil is cheap and works nicely. For a rubber, I used about 15 cotton balls pulled apart and reworked into one large wad of cotton, and wrapped that in a piece of a well worn t shirt. The first couple coats go on a bit thicker to fill the pores, which are then traditionally worked with some pumice and alcohol, but you can use 600 or 800 grit sandpaper if you aren't a purist. I'm not a purist. After the pores are filled, the bodying coats start. Basically, you charge your pad with a few drops of shellac and an equal amount of plain alcohol, put a touch of oil on if you need it, and begin working across the surface in small, overlapping circles. There are a lot of different patterns to use and it helps keep the finish level if you move in different directions. Work the surface with that same small amount of shellac for 10 to 15minutes, recharge the pad and move on to the next surface. I did 5 bodying sessions on this guitar. Each subsequent session, you use a kittle less shellac and a little more alcohol. After the bodying sessions, you work each surface with just alcohol, which is called spiriting off the finish. This removes any oil that is left on the surface and burnishes the finish to your desired level of shine.

In general, shellac is not a terribly durable finish, and since a proper french polish is incredibly thin, you can easily scratch it with your fingernail and a bit of pressure. Since it melts into itself, it is easy to repair, though. I think the finish looks great on my guitar, but I managed to scratch the top when I was fitting the last bridge I made, so I have some touch up to do. On an electric guitar, I wouldn't put in the effort to do a proper french polish. It would likely get pretty trashed in a hurry. Thicker coats with a wax barrier will give you more protection, but it will still be softer than lacquer.

Christ, that ended up being a little long. Sorry. Let me know if you have any other questions about shellac. It is my favorite finish.