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Hi everyone!

I am a music student looking to build my own harp guitar. I am a pretty good wood worker but have never attempted to build even a solid body guitar. Does anyone have any pointers or so book/tutorial I can check to learn the basics for such a project?

Thank you

What kind of a harp guitar? Flattop? Archtop? Solidbody electric?

Harp guitars are so rare and specialized - most experienced builders wouldn't even attempt to build one. Certainly not a project for beginner. So, no - in answer to your question - there are no books and tutorials on building such a beast.

Props for setting your goals high.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Yes that is a lofty goal for sure. I think DennisK has built them before so he might chime in here or you can search for him here.

There are a number of different types of Harp guitars, so you might want to do a little research and figure out what type you want to build. I built a "travel" Harp guitar. which is actually more of a contra guitar with a removable neck. Dyer type harp guitars seem to be popular and wouldn't be too much different than building a flat top guitar. Gibson built some that were like a cross between a contra guitar and a pregnant arch top. There are several modern makers that are building harp guitars of their own designs with added treble courses.
Here is a website you might want to check out:
http://www.harpguitarmusic.com

Several people on this forum have built harp guitars and could give you some guidance, as well as most of us who can answer general guitar building questions.

I’ve built two. First was a dud. It was second guitar I built. First was a normal Martin kit, from Bluescreek. It did little to prepare me for the harp. I have plans for a Dyer. U can get them at harpguitars.net

But seriously, u biting off a huge project. My second harp came out great. But yet to put the neck on.

Indeed I have But unfortunately mine is also kind of a dud. Very muddy sounding, not much bass, and hollow sounding trebles. 16" lower bout, 5" depth at tailblock, 4" soundhole, 1.5" harp arm soundhole, redwood soundboard (.100" thick), osage orange back/sides (basically equivalent to rosewood). I think the thin top is the cause of the hollow trebles, larger soundbox and/or smaller soundhole would have helped the bass (maybe 17" lower bout with 3.75" hole), and less lively back wood would reduce the muddiness. I think one of these days I'll peel it open and re-carve the braces for nylon strings, which will probably sound much better.

I have built a couple steel string harp ukuleles as well (one redwood/walnut, the other sitka/mahogany). The first one sounded great, but died of underbracing after a few years (excessive soundboard deformation leading to bridge peeling). The second also sounds great, and is plenty stiff. It's so fun and easy to play (4 harp strings tuned CDEF and 4 neck strings tuned GCGC), I want to make an octave-lower version It will be about the same frequency range as a guitar in drop tuning, just different string configuration.

My construction process mainly comes from the Cumpiano book. Spanish heel, braces glued using cam clamps, sides bent on hot pipe and joined to soundboard using dentellones (individual lining blocks, as opposed to kerfed lining strips). Although I don't use a workboard at all, and my templates and bending patterns are just paper. Aside from crafting of the harp headstock, there's really not much extra work involved in building a harp guitar. Just less straightforward measurements, since everything is asymmetrical. But that probably just means building regular guitars this way is horribly inefficient

I'd recommend building a practice guitar first to familiarize yourself with the build process and get the dumb first-time mistakes out of the way. But some people do turn out excellent guitars on their first try, so you could just dive right in if you want to go slow and careful.

I used nylon cored basses which are less stiff and I think work better for the "harp" strings. If you aren't getting a good bass response you might try swapping a couple out and see if it will make a difference.

If normal guitar building is an art, like maybe, maybe like Monets? Then harp guitars are like Divincis? There is a lot of complex stuff going on. I hate to tell anyone not to try. But there is a lot of expensive materials involved. To me, the proper formation of the harp neck, and neck block and than that crazy normal neck joint. Omg. The original builders were amazing to have figured that out.

It would be awesome if u could cut the neck joint like with a normal guitar ( router, neck jig, etc) . But the harp neck gets in the way. No way to do that. Someone want to correct my thinking?

Lots of people rout the neck block bfore attachment and then just trim away the sides.

How bout a bolt on neck instead?

I've built a number of harp guitars, including some with 'odd' features. I would not recommend duplicating some of those! Even a 'standard' type of harp guitar is a lot of work. I did have one student who built one as his first project, and it came out pretty well.

Most of these are made on a 'solera': a work board that you clamp the soundboard to, and then build around that and the neck. This is the 'traditional' Spanish way of making a classical guitar. In this method you put a fair amount of effort into making the work board just right, and it more or less automatically ensures that the neck lines up at the correct angle. The drawback is that, as it's usually done, the neck and neck block are one piece, so it's impossible to re-set the neck when it pulls up. This may or may not be an issue in a harp guitar, depending on how it's built: the bass extension on the body can be made quite stiff (as in a Weissenborn) and take up a lot of the load, depending on the design.

When I have made them I started out by making pretty exact drawings to work from. You want the strings to align properly, and to be in the same plane so that the player can find them easily, so that's where you start. The neck and fingerboard are positioned from there to get the action to work out right, and you position the soundboard to take the use of sharping levers into account, if you think you'll want them. Once you have all of those numbers cranked in the rest of the design follows. The more 'bells and whistles' you want the more time you'll spend on the drawing. I made three complete sets of drawings for both the instrument and the box when I built a folding harp guitar that fits into a case that will go into the overhead. There was not a lot of room for improvisation in that one!

Some folks go 'way overboard with bracing on these. They carry about the same string load as a normal 12-string (depending on how many sub-basses and super trebles you put on). It's probably about twice the load on a six string, which means you only need to make the top twice as stiff for it to work. For the most part, any guitar top that's stiff enough will be more than strong enough. Making the top 12% thicker than you would for a six string, and the bracing 24% taller, usually does the trick. With twice the power driving a top that's only 20-30% heavier (the bridge and plate add some weight, and so on) you can get serious volume from one.

For mine I've used form laminated liners as structural elements in the extension arm and upper bout of the box. These can be fairly light wood, such as butternut or cedro, and still be strong enough to take the load and still keep the weight down.

I could go on, but you should get other input. Check out Greg Miner's 'www.harpguitars.net' (I'm pretty sure that's it). He's got a nice thesis about what constitutes a harp guitar, with lots of pictures, and I believe there are pictures from his museum as well. There's a ton of information out there; harp guitar makers and players are always ready to share.

Only way I know to make it, though I'm going to study Alan's comments above.

I could be convinced to finish and sell this one !

More pics

Lol, on a roll here

For reference, this was the fourth guitar I ever built. It’s not perfect by any means. But there is a ton of detail.

Hi Pete,
If you are looking to build a guitar with harp basses something similar to this might not be too difficult as a first project. This one was built to be a "travel guitar". The neck detaches and fits inside the body through a tail port. You could eliminate those features and build it like a normal guitar, just adding the harp strings.

Clay: A clever and interesting design -- and a likely future project, probably with fan frets on the neck so that a single bridge could service all the strings.

Pretty cool Mike!

Hi Hans,
The sub basses are tuned D,C,B,A,G,F, E (longest). I used nylon cored basses and used the second bridge to keep them reasonably long and flexible (short thick metal strings sound "tubby") and still be able to fix them at the peghead. It's a simple design so changing keys requires retuning (no sharping levers) but compromises have to be made somewhere. I generally cap the nut and use bag clamps with notches cut in them to keep the strings from tangling.

In the original Dyer model (like mine), they used bridge pins to raise strings (sort of like a nut). Are they truly necessary? Do they improve sound? My first used bridge pins. Hated that design, thinking about using brass standoff nuts. (slot filed into top, black epoxy fill in threaded center.

Mine will have six sub-basses. Anybody have a good string source? Gonna use Waverly slotted tuners, looking for advice on sub-bass tuners.

"Anybody have a good string source?"

Again, check out Greg Miner's site. If the 'Pope of the Harp Guitar' can't help you, who can?

Thanks Alan. I’ll ask Greg. Not talked to him in a while