Learn make guitar videos
Cats: making a guitar|The making of a harp guitar had been at the back of my mind for some time. I had seen several of them in a museum in Vermillion, Sth Dakota, USA, during one of my trips.The Shrine to Music Museum had one Stradivarius guitar on show. He only made a handful of guitars, so it was great to see it. Anyway, you can’t make a harp guitar from normal guitar wood sizes, so over the years, I kept aside longer pieces of top wood and back and side pieces. Finally, after hearing fabulous harp guitar players like Stephen Bennett play, it just spurred me on to get one finished. I dug out my old issues of the guild of american luthiers mags, and poured over all the pics of harp guitars. A lot of the pics were of the inside of instruments, so the top bracing pattern was on show, and I could get an idea of the amount of bracing required.
The first thing I did was to use my drawing machine to draw up the outline of the instrument. I cheat as much as I can, so I used one of my acoustics with an M38 Martin shape as a guide. I used the pattern from when I made that shape guitar, and copied it onto the drawing sheet. I could only go as far as where the bass side of the body dives off to become the bass arm. The rest of the outline was proportioned from the small pictures I had access to. I have kept this drawing intact, and continue to use it when I make a harp guitar. I have used california redwood for the top, and black wattle for the back and sides. The neck is sapele. Hope you get something out of watching this video.
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