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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.
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
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The double top with the 9 braces
Hauser fan, was developed and introduced by Master Luthier Manuel
Contreras the II at the end of the 70s and reached its peak in the 80s.
In this Variation of the Double top, a second top is located halfway between
the main top and the back. It is held in place by means of little Mahogany
bridges located above and below the second top along the inner part of
the sides (frames 1 & 3). The second top rests on the upper bridges
and once it is glued on each little bridge (frame 2), a second bridge is
glued on top of the preceding corresponding bridge below the second top
(frame 3). This second top vibrates a fraction of a second after the first
one creating an immense sustain and punch using the air moving inside the
sound box and thus creating a multiplying effect of the sonorous waves.
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.
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