"Catherine", curly redwood/mahogany archtop first pictures

[Brian Evans]

I named this one after my wife. First traditional archtop, curly redwood top and mahogany back/sides, birdseye maple neck, one piece jatoba bridge. Just put it together after final finish spraying, I will wait a few weeks and then polish it out. Hand-rubbed sunburst using alcohol based leather dyes over a shellac base coat. Sound is big and round, kind of shimmery, quite loud to my ears (louder than my 17" jumbo flat top, anyway), and pretty balanced. Mids and highs can really punch if you dig in. I bought the inlay work from England, it's pretty nice. I added a small wave-shaped sound port on the upper bout side, which makes a noticeable difference in tonal balance. The flame pattern changes considerably depending on lighting and angle.

Brian

[Patrick Hanna]

That's a nice looking guitar! Could we see a few more pictures? Maybe the back, sound port, bridge, etc.

[Brian Evans]

A couple of more pictures.

[Christ Kacoyannakis]

Really nice work. Super job! Congratulations.

[Jason Rodgers]

Say, that's a looker! How'd you brace the top? How tall is the top arch?

[Brian Evans]

The top was made from 1" thick stock, so the arch is probably around 3/4" or a little less. I braced it with a variation on the normal X brace. I did an X brace with a third member directly up the middle on the center line of the top. With all the talk about how floppy curly redwood could be I wanted to give it a little more help.

Brian

[Patrick Hanna]

I think it's excellent. Kitty seems to like it, too.

[Brian Evans]

Thanks for the nice comments. Kitty is a cast iron piece bolted to the railing, it's odd indeed to come out and see birds perched on her...

I did something today, in fact, that I have been thinking about since I strung it up but haven't gotten around to. I have an excellent resonator guitar, a Paul Beard Gold Tone round neck. I always just assumed that it was very loud, and the loudest guitar I own. I've already played the archtop against all my other guitars, including a 17" Jumbo flat top, but I was really surprised today to find that the arch top is marginally greater in volume than the resonator. You can dig in to both, but the archtop has greater headroom, seems to be more effortless. They are both set up the same, same strings, but the archtop really hangs in there. As I play it in, I get more and more impressed. Next I plan to play it against a custom made archtop that a friend is picking up in late May (his has a pickup in the top, so not necessarily the same sort of guitar) and maybe next week take it to be played and recorded by a friend of mine who is a professional jazz player.

I've literally never played a top level acoustic archtop so I don't have a real benchmark, but I am really liking playing this guitar in.

Brian

[Jason Rodgers]

There used to be a guitar shop in downtown Portland that carried some high end stuff, and I went in one day on a lunch break and they let me play a Steve Anderson 17" archtop. It was the model Dan Faehnle was playing at the time. The only thing close to an archtop I had played was my old Gibson 125-T, and this thing blew my mind. Light as a feather, crazy responsive. I mostly held it and stared at it for 3 minutes, and then handed it back gingerly. It was an enjoyable 3 minutes.

[Eric Baack]

She is gorgeous

[John Mueller]

Great looking instrument. The tailpiece is the only thing that isn't yours. I'd like to see the tailpiece YOU build.