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. |
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.
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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