Brazilian RW/Spruce Classical "Assegai"

[Michael Lazar]

A few years back a close friend asked me to reserve my 100th guitar for him. During that time we located a very old (40 years+) set of flitch matched Brazilian. The book matched pattern on the back looked very much like the blade of a short spear developed by the Zulu people in Africa called an "Assegai". The wood is dark and I hope you can see it in the photos. All of the rosewood, including the bridge, headstock veneers and rosette background came from the same block. Bindings & fret board are ebony and the neck is mahogany. Tuners are Graf. I'll put more photos in the next post.

[Michael Lazar]

Here are some more photos including the top bracing consisting of two focused fan strut sets. Each set is comprised of 7 struts 4 tall/narrow and 3 low/wide. Each set is rotated off center (one clockwise and the other counter clockwise) and interlocked to form a lattice of sorts. In addition there is a bridge bar directly beneath the bridge saddle.

[Bob Francis]

Beautiful work

[Steve Senseney]

Very nice!

[Barry Daniels]

Interesting tail block treatment. I also like the minimal placement of the side bracing.

[Jason Rodgers]

Excellent! I don't think you could have framed that "spear" any better, especially the point reaching into the heel extension.

That's a lot going on under the hood. What are the dimensions of the fan lattice? Also, those linings are quite stout: are they solid bent, or solid laminated?

Very clean, very classy. What finish?

[Michael Lazar]

Hi Jason,

The tall fan struts are 6.5mm tall X 3mm wide. The low ones are 2mm tall X 4.5mm wide. The total mass of the system is the same as most Torres 7 strut arrangements.

The ash linings are bent at 2.5mm thick then laminated. The top are 3 ply and the back are 2 ply.

The finish is shellac (french polish).

[Darrel Friesen]

An absolutely beautiful instrument Michael. You do know you've posted it in the Archtop section? You may get more responses in the flat top section ;o)

[Wayne Brown]

Beautiful guitar!

[Waddy Thomson]

Fine looking instrument in every way! Is that a bent upper bout for the raised finger board similar to Greg Byers' builds?

[Michael Lazar]

Fine looking instrument in every way! Is that a bent upper bout for the raised finger board similar to Greg Byers' builds?

No it isn't. The entire top is rotated with the fulcrum located at the point of the saddle some what similar to a Thomas Humphrey "Millenium" guitar. Unlike either Byers or Humphrey the design employs Spanish Heel architecture.

[Waddy Thomson]

Thank you, Michael. Does it change the "tone" in a similar way to a Humphrey? I have always felt that the change in string angle to the saddle made those guitars sound a bit more like a piano. Not my favorite, but lots of folks like that sound, and maybe the loudest guitar i've ever heard was a Humphrey with the swept back wings on the bridge.

[Chuck Tweedy]

Mick Lazar, long time no see!!

[Michael Lazar]

Thank you, Michael. Does it change the "tone" in a similar way to a Humphrey? I have always felt that the change in string angle to the saddle made those guitars sound a bit more like a piano. Not my favorite, but lots of folks like that sound, and maybe the loudest guitar i've ever heard was a Humphrey with the swept back wings on the bridge.

Hi Waddy,

I don't think the change in string angle affected the tone to any discernible extent. I spent about a week with Byers about 10 years back learning design and voicing and after I returned I built 8 guitars without the sloped top/elevated fret board. I used a fairly standard fan asymmetric fan strut design somewhat similar to the Ramirez approach. All of these were very consistent in their tonality, balance, volume, sustain etc. I then developed the sloped top design, jigs etc. and built 27 more. In these guitars the top was fully domed with the apex of the dome in front of the saddle, hence the plane of the bridge in relation to the fret board changed very little if at all when the top was rotated. The strutting design remained unchanged. Apart from an increase in volume there was no noticeable difference in the performance characteristics of those 27 guitars.

I think the difference in the tonality of the Humphrey design arose from his top bracing, ie; a lattice consisting of 5 parallel longitudinal struts interlocked with 3 parallel transverse struts. I've looked at a lot of guitars utilizing parallel lattice strutting and to me their tonality is somewhat similar from one to the next and (IMHO) is less appealing than the tonality of a good fan braced guitar. Consequently I stayed away from the lattice concept until I saw Byers rotated twin fan design which, to my ears at least, combines all of the tonal beauty of Torres traditional fan strutting with the volume and projection of a lattice system. I've used this approach with small variances on my last 33 guitars.

If you are interested and have "Flash Player" on your system you can listen to some live clips of one of these guitars on my web site at http://www.lazarguitars.com/audio.html

[Michael Lazar]

Mick Lazar, long time no see!!

Hey Chuck,

Yeah I became a little reclusive for a while. I've been doing a lot of introspection, research and experimentation over the past few years. It was time for me to come out of my cave at least now and then. If nothing else I needed to see if my wife was still around

[Matthew Lau]

Nice work as always.

Your friend is a lucky man.

[Gilbert Fredrickson]

Lovely. Nice bridge design and execution.

[Waddy Thomson]

Thank you very much for your explanation Michael. I know you enjoyed your time with Byers. A really nice person, who makes some fine instruments.

[Douglas Ingram]

I've always admired your work, Michael. Good to see some more! And welcome out of the cave.

[Nathan Dodd]

Absolutely beautiful work. An inspiration.