ES175/L4CES

[Hans Vermeulen]

I am preparing to build an ES 175 based on the well-known drawing from Australien Luthier Supplies (because I want to make the top, sides and back of solid wood, it will actually be an L4CES). According to the drawing there is a very small dome too small for my taste, in both top and back. In Benedetto's book a much larger dome is used: about 16mm on the top. Now that 16mm seems quite big for a 16 inch guitar. My question now is: what is a common curve in top and back on a 16 inch archtop, or does it not matter much on a guitar with two humbucker pickups?

[Barry Daniels]

Yeah, two humbuckers pretty well eliminates any acoustic concerns. A full acoustic archtop is often 3/4 to 1" arched, whereas you would be fine with something nearer 1/2".

[Freeman Keller]

Hans, I have built two acoustic guitars sort of like what you are suggesting. The first was built from the ALS ES-173 plans but were intended to be totally acoustics so I used a single piece of spruce thicknessed to slightly less than 1/8 inch and X braced it in a 16 foot radius dish. That gives a little doming but not nearly as much as you would see on a carved topped guitar

I also just completed a 16 inch acoustic archtop and used Benedetto's arching (5/8) and thicknessing (1/4 center to 1/8 recurve) with X bracing.

Both of these guitars used commercial floating bridges and tail pieces - it would have been easy to modify the bracing to mount pickups as with a 175. I do have other pictures of these if you are interested.