Latest experimental guitar

[Brian Evans]

This is my asymmetrical body shape, which I have dubbed "Moderne" (how innovative, you all gasp... ). Anyway, extravagantly birdseye maple back and sides from my friends sawmill, about 1/2 mile down the street from my home, cut in 1972. I can't take pictures to save my life, so the grain figure doesn't show all that well. Top is sinker curly redwood, the curl is very faint in this piece. Heck is three pieces of the same birdseye maple, with a veneer on the headstock. Stair-step 6 in-line headstock shape somewhat inspired by Matsuda and Ken Parker, and sound-hole in the upper bout top\side is inspired by Parker, of course. Tailpiece and bridge are for the moment, I plan to make a one piece bridge and a different tailpiece later. I also may add a finger rest and floating pickup, but I never play amplified so again may not. Neck is 1.85 at the nut, padauk fingerboard, and 2.25" string spacing at the bridge. Binding is tortoise shell celluloid. Finish is EM6000, with a touch of amber dye.

Sound is very balanced and even, loud, yet mellow (with Newtone .012 - .052 nickle double wound strings). Everything I hoped for and more. Bracing is modified X, with an additional brace diagonally across the lower bout below the bridge. With a nod towards the assumed fragility of redwood I added a longitudinal dowel brace between the head and tail blocks to take up much of the string tension. I made several unfixable mistakes late in the finishing game, so this is going to be a personal player - which I am not unhappy about at all. It is by far the best sounding and playing guitar I have built to date.

[Chris Richards]

I Really like it, the shape is nice, love the headstock and especially like the finished colour, very pleasing to the eye and like you say it's a bit different, the fretboard also matches nicely, what wood did you use? I'm not over keen on otherwise traditional shaped archtops that have the upper front bout sound hole configuration but with a guitar that is different like this then I think it goes well together.

Form a personal point of view I might have continued the top wood around the outer perimeter of the sound hole (around the edge), love the maple sides and back, in the first picture it looks as though the sides are 3 piece and I love that look?

[Brian Evans]

Thanks very much for your comments. The fretboard is padauk, I like the reddish colour. The sides are one piece, that is just a neat grain artifact that is book-matched on both sides. I went with the maple top cap on the side of the cut-out bridge for strength, but it could as easily been the same redwood as the top. It's actually a composite layup of the side wood, a layer of fiberglass and epoxy, a layer of thin birdseye veneer that covers the fiberglass completely surrounding the side cut-out, and a layer of side thickness wood to bring the "bridge" up to around .300" thick. The final part that you can see is a top cap of the same birdseye maple that is 3/16" thick to match the thickness of the top. If I count right, that little bridge has 5 layers in all... Plus it is bound with the celluloid binding, I guess that makes 6 layers.

[Chris Richards]

Thanks for the explanation, I'm guessing the bridge around the sound hole is going to be plenty strong enough with all those laminates! Love the padauk fb I'll have to try some of that and yes that grain feature on the sides is gorgeous.

I can't say why but colour is really important to me and how the different woods blend together, I'm not a fan of multitudes of figured wood thrown together for the sake of it, this guitar just seems to have a really nice vintage patina look, I don't think I could walk by it without having to pick it up , sounds stupid but it just looks very tactile!