At last Geoff’s OO steel-string is finished and ready to go!
At last Geoff’s OO steel-string is finished and ready to go!
As some of you may have gathered, I don’t like the idea of a UK luthier making slavish copies of American guitars; that said, I do like the OO shape! It works extremely well for a small-bodied 14 fret neck guitar, so in spite of myself, I was happy to build a guitar, for Geoff, to that shape. As you can see the only thing OOish is the shape of the body; I’ve kept to my headstock design and followers of the blog will know my thoughts on the Martin shape already!
This guitar has a 635mm scale length and although I may extol the virtues of 650mm scale, the shorter scale is easier to play and produces a warmer tone. Geoff wanted a guitar that not only was easy to physically play but gave up its sound without a fight and I think he’s got it here.
I try to do everything myself (with much support from Amanda); so apart from building instrument, there’s the website to maintain, the blog and videos. I’m finding photographing the instrument a bit of a challenge and one that I haven’t mastered yet. One of the trickiest aspects is photographing shiny surfaces without getting unwanted reflections. Here are some more photos of the OO; best I can do! That Honduras rosewood really is quite wonderful!
Labels: Handmade guitars, Luthier, OO guitar
posted by Gary Nava, Luthier at 5:55 pm
2 Comments:
Gary, interesting to hear your comments regarding the relative merits of the different scale lengths. In saying that the 650mm scale length suits a larger venue, is it just that it provides more volume, or is there more to it than that?
It's lovely! A beautiful marriage of traditional Martin profile and your own curvacious headstock, fretboard and bridge. Well done, sir.
(p.s. but please do not despair w/r/t copying the American steelstring guitar. It is merely an apex of an artform. Take what is right and keep - primarily the X brace - retain the essence, and modify the remainder and the ornamentals. The world does not hesitate to copy the Strad violin, or the hammer action of the pianoforte. Neither should you.)
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