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I often build two or three guitars in parallel. Here‘ s the third of three that I’ve built most recently. This one is a grand auditorium sized body of East Indian rosewood with matching EIR bindings. The top is old growth curly redwood. Neck is sapele with rosewood fretboard, bridge, and head plate. The guitar features a sound port in the upper bout and is fitted with Grover Rotomatic tuners and a JJB Prestige 330 surface mount pickup. It’s the first time I’ve used a curly redwood top so I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. I‘m pleasantly surprised as the sound is big and well balanced. I really like this one and may just decide to keep it for myself.

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Andy
www.bounsallguitarworks.com

Looks really nice!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I really like non-cutaways with a modern design. No offense to the cutaway builders, but I just prefer the non-cutaways. Well done on this one!

Neato! Unique and different. Nice looking EIR too.

I see that you countered the sound port with quite small tone holes on the belly. Are you trying for a certain air frequency of the body? Helmholtz frequency. I never know how to spell that name. It gives the guitar a totally different look. I like different, especially when well done, and thought out. Simple is just as hard to pull off as bling.

Not having a sound hole between the bridge and neck opens up all kinds of possibilities for bracing. The only guitar I've finished is an Arch top with a curly redwood top. I've found that curl seems to make the wood more flexible along the grain. Redwood doesn't seem that stiff anyway, but it sounds great; lots of overtones. The arch-top has the arching, and parallel braces for strength, what kind of bracing did you use on yours?

Nice job Andy.

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Why be normal?

Beautiful! I'd want to keep it, too!
Would love to hear it!

Nice looking guitar and interesting design concept.
I strikes me that for those who are looking for a "couch noodler" as Bruce Sexaurer calls it, a person could combine a large side port with a small body and smaller, or no soundholes in the top to preserve soundboard real estate. The couch noodler being a personal parlor guitar, forward projection would not matter - and who knows, it might still project enough, especially with modern amplification options.

Exquisite. I love the design.

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-Marcus
http://www.bailieguitars.com
Instagram | YouTube

Andy, that is very well executed. I like the wide bindings.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks all for the kind words.
I’ve uploaded a short clip to YouTube (https://youtu.be/kAsEzFFE44M) for those that want to hear it. You’ll have to excuse my almost mediocre playing.

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Andy
www.bounsallguitarworks.com

Ken, not trying for any certain helmholtz frequency. Quite a few of my guitars are built without a center sound hole. I like to experiment with alternate sizes and locations of sound holes to find what really works and what doesn’t. Eliminating the center sound hole means that some of the structure which traditionally provides support around that hole can be eliminated. The theory is that this allows more area of the top to vibrate and participate in sound production. Here’s a photo of the internals of this guitar showing the soundboard bracing.

Oh yeah. I agree that simple and elegant is at least as hard, or harder, to pull off successfully than bling.

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Andy
www.bounsallguitarworks.com

Clay, many people who are WAY smarter than me have written volumes on such topics. I’m not sure that the sound hole plays that big of a factor in forward projection of sound. It is after all the vibration of the soundboard, not the hole, that produces sound.

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Andy
www.bounsallguitarworks.com

Andy - Thanks for sharing the photo of the bracing you used. It's very interesting and food for thought. Beautiful guitar too.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

True enough - harps don't have sound holes in their soundboards and still project well enough.