African
Rosewood B&S, Hauser braced 280 year old Sinker Redwood top Concert
guitar. 640mm fret spacing, Cocobolo bindings
and Luxury marquetry on all sides. Gold plated carved tuners, 20"
radiused Ebony fingerboard, Brazilian Rosewood armrest and decorated bridge.
Double
soundport in Upper left bout & oval shaped soundport on the indented
cutaway. Amazing grain and sound! African
Rosewood is steadily becoming one of my all time favorite Tropical Tonewoods.
Originary from Central Africa, it has an amazing figure that swirls majestically.
It is a very hard tonewood thus producing one of the most beautiful tones
a guitar can produce. It has a very attractive shine in the grain that
makes it reflect the light differently according to the angle from which
it is illuminated. The closest resemblance I find is to the long, curly
hair on a red hair girl. The bookmatch is perfect. The 2 halves of the
back seem to be reflecting each other in a mirror. Tap tone is sensational
and I could go on for hours counting the marvels of this tremendous African
tonewood.
I matched it with a 280 year old
Sinker Redwood top. The combination is perfect because the 2 woods complement
each other to perfection. The brilliant sound generated by African Rosewood
is balanced by the deep, mature sound of Sinker Redwood. The guitar generates
a fabulous vibrato and I exploit it to the maximum in Bach's Cello Prelude
1, making the best of each musical phrase. I find her lively and brilliant
when I play Galilei's Saltarello. The bass is perfect with the right amount
of crispiness and the trebles shine marvelously. A sound to die for. The
strategic placement of the soundports creates a sound that will literally
fill the room with the most amazing presence. She project to perfection
and her sustain is the very best. Easy to play thanks to the indented cutaway
that allows easy access all the way to the F#, the slim neck, the soft
20" radius and the action at just 3.5mm at fret 12... A true masterpiece
!
..
The 9 braces Hauser fan is
the most thoroughly tested fan brace setup on the planet. It is the result
of many years of experimenting. It is braced on Torres 4 fan brace design.
The braces act as sound vibrations highways...they carry the vibration
of each string to a specific spot on the soundboard. If you put your fingers
on the soundboard as you play the 6th string for instance, you will feel
the upper portion of the top vibrate with more power than the rest of the
top. You will be able to feel this vibrations with your fingertips
all the way to the 4th strings. It is harder to feel the vibration caused
by the treble strings. The variations on the 9 braces fan is enormous.
Luthier taylor each fan to achieve a specific sound and match the instrument
with the rest of the woods used in the construction. Above to the left
is a 9 braces all Spruce fan. I often use a mixture of Cedar, Spruce and
Mahogany to match different wood combinations.
650 mm
or 640 mm? Keep the following
rule at hand: If the distance between the tip of your thumb and the tip
of your little finger is equal or less than 9 in. when fully stretched,
use 640 mm.
Radiused
or flat fingerboard? The radiused fingerboard has been
around the acoustic and the electric guitar since day one. The same is
true for most instruments of the Stringed family of instruments (violas,
violins cellos, bass). Radiusing (image above) makes barre and left hand
stopping A LOT easier. The only drawback is that you will NEVER want to
play a flat fingerboard after that. If you are having your custom
guitar built, I am all pro radiusing the fingerboard. The standard
fingerboard is flat.
Sinker logs, are pulled from
the bottom of lakes and rivers.
Sometimes, scuba divers are needed
to achieve the extraction. Most of these logs
are hundreds of years old (In one
of the pictures above, you can see that the tree was
cut with an hatchet). Due to a series
of factors (The logs were too big and heavy to be
pulled out of the rivers or the
logs were caught by currents and were sucked to the
bottom) these logs were trapped
by the muddy buttons of these water beds and this
created like a time capsule where
the wood was preserved in fantastic humidity
conditions that made the wood season
in a slow natural way during many centuries.
Some of the logs are selected for
musical instruments construction. The sound that
these woods produce is unique and
the grain has a beautiful coloration that changes
according to the type of mud present
in the water bed.
Optional Velvet guitar
cover (USD 35)
PROTECTIVE GEAR
These attractive hand sawn velvet guitar
covers are very useful if you like to leave your instrument out of the
case for long stretches of time. They are a great solution to avoid scratches
during practice from the friction of buttons with the finish. To use it
while playing, use it in the position shown to the right.
These are hand sawn by the wife of
my Leather cases embosser.
When ordering a guitar, every
player will ask me to set the action as low as possible without any
buzzes... Since every player applies different amount of strenght
when plucking the strings it is impossible to set the action precisely
to each player's will. The Spanish builder Fleta, had come up with this
genial idea which consists of pushing the bone more or less into the groove
on the bridge. The player would set the action to his liking and then either
cut off the excess or keep it intact in case he decided to lower or raise
the action depending on humidity conditions etc. On request, I can prepare
a Fleta saddle bone for an extra 80 US$.
Radiused
or flat fingerboard?
