Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello! I have been a lurker in the forum for a couple of years now and am not a luthier... nevertheless I have been well informed by all the wonderful threads here and have learned a lot! Thanks to everyone!

Edward Victor Dick of the Denver area recently completed a new 9-string guitar for me. He was very patient, listened closely to my ideas, and agreed to build the guitar essentially as I requested. The result is very very close to the instrument I imagined and is extremely successful as a tool for making music. It is very beautiful in tone and appearance, too. I am very grateful to Edward.

The design is not traditional and touches many topics discussed here in the forum.

More pictures of it are in a Picasa web album you can find here.

Wow, that is quite a guitar! I really love the offset rosette. What woods were used? And do you have any pictures of the back? Must be quite a stretch for the hands across that fingerboard.

Great looking guitar!
And what a clever arrangement for the pegs.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Bravo! Congratulations to you and Edward both.

I must of skipped past the part where you said more pics here. Gorgeous rosewood back!

John,
I was over at Edwards many a time during the construction of this guitar, so I got to see it through most of the building phases. I didn't get to play it at the end, but I did see it during the finish process. I think that was brazilian rosewood right? The neck was one of the most unusual feeling necks I've ever played, as the middle is indented, and was a pretty thin neck for how wide it was. I was wondering how you could play it, because the neck was so wide. I don't play classical guitar, so to me it seemed foreign. But so glad it turned out as planned, and hope it gives you many years of enjoyment! By the way, I own one of his steel string guitars, #268, and one of his banjolas #354. Both are fantastic instruments!

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Tracy
http://www.luthiersuppliers.com

Some details about this guitar:

Sitka top
Mad rose back, sides, and peghead backplate
Brazilian body/neck/peghead binding, bridge, peghead frontplate
2-piece ebony fingerboard, ebony arm rest
Maple neck (flame, birdseye, flame)
Amboyna burl neck heel cap and rosette
Loquat plug for cello post hole

9-string nylon, 644mm-696mm scale
Neck joins body at 14th fret, 22 frets treble, 17 frets bass-side
Currently tuned EE AA D E A g b e', sometimes DD GG C E A g b e' and others
Double-action truss rod, adjusted at the headstock, "hidden" cover plate
Cantilevered neck & fingerboard
Lattice bracing
Compound fretboard profile (radiused treble, flat bass)
"Scooped" neck profile
Stereo K&K (3+3 sensors)
Cello post opening in tail

The goal was to provide an extended range instrument which retained a guitar-like feel, playability, and sound. The thin neck (with the scooped profile on the back and the half-curved, half-flat finger board) was designed specifically to address the playability of such a wide neck. Most guitars with extra courses treat them directly as diapasons (no frets installed or rarely fretted by the player). I have small hands but wanted to fret all 9 strings, including the occasional 8- or 9-string barre.

The thin, scooped neck profile combined with very low action gives a jazz-guitar feel in the left hand (for the upper six strings) because the thumb seems to "wrap" the neck by settling into the groove between the 6th and 7th string. Barred stops and glides feel very "electric". But because the width of the neck and the string spacing are standard multi-string classical, the guitar supports classical technique in both hands: plenty of room for all manner of finger-style movement. The surface of the fingerboard on the bass-side helps reduce interference between the strings and the underside of the fingers when fretting strings 7, 8 and 9. It also "tricks" the fingers into thinking the action underneath the bass strings is lower than it really is, because the fingers do not have to stretch quite as far to press the string into the fret. Consider that if the fingerboard was radiused across the entire width, the fingers would have to stretch slightly further "around and down" to fret those bass strings.

Edward's very precise construction tolerances mean that all strings sustain fully at all frets, including string 1 @ fret 22. Indeed, the open string sustain is the longest for any guitar I have played.

The sound is a mixture of nylon-jazz and "rich" classical. The middle strings sound very cello-like and the basses growl very deeply. There is even response and tonality across all strings, an amazing achievement, IMO. Plus the guitar has oodles of that seductive "cathedral" effect common to multi-string classicals.

A 14-fret guitar with access to 22 frets for the treble strings combined with a nearly 5 octave range really opens up the musical possibilities.