Official Luthiers Forum!

Well, I'll just slide a recently completed Weissenborn into the mix. All Koa, Liberon oil finish. No bling. I live in Port Townsend, WA where Chris Knutsen designed the predecessor to this instrument in 1895. Thought a more recently minted version was in order. This number 55 for me but the first without a neck! Guess I'll have to learn how to play it. Took it to the local music store for a test drive by the owner. It passed the test.
Jay

Beautiful!

looks awesome man!!

I know this post is a little old but I just seen it. Nice guitar. I have been getting the urge to try and build one of these. My question is did you use a plan and if so where did you get it? I know stew mac has one but it looks limited. It's hard to tell if it's a decent plan in their catalog and website photo. And good books out there on building these?...Thanks Mike

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Another day, another dollar.

Mike, having just built two Weissenborns I'll jump in here. There are plans at both MIMF and StewMac - they are slightly different (Weissenborns changed a lot over the years). The feeling is that the SM plans are not very accurate. There are also some pretty strong feelings that they are over braced - they call for 3/8 X 3/8 braces, most people thin them considerably.

There was also an article in American Lutherie last year about building one - that person used angled tone bars instead of the traditional cross brace. When I built mine I tried one in the traditional fashion, one with angled tone bars - they definitely sound different (and not what you would expect). I have recorded each and am planning to post clips and pics of the bracing, but I will do it in the general acoustic section since these technically aren't resonators.

If you do a search in the acoustic section for Weissenborn you will find lots of previous posts - these were very helpful to me. I've also got some links to other forums about strings, tunings etc.

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll by both their plans as a start. Can you remember what issue of American Lutherie that article was in? If so I'll buy a back copy of it....Thanks Mike

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Another day, another dollar.

I'll look it up tonight, altho everyone who has heard mine prefers the "standard" bracing. I'm also very close to posting some clips of each along with pictures of the insides - probably this weekend. Meanwhile, here was the original thread

viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=33281