Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi all. I've been asked to build a Weissenborn for a band mate who I've built a couple of other instruments for. Before I jump in, I thought I reach out for any recommendations from the crew. I know some of you have built these.

Recommendations on wood types? Source in the US? What plans are people using? Thoughts on pickups (he'll definitely want one)? Things to avoid? Things to definitely do? Whatever.

Thanks! Really looking forward to building something different.

_________________
Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

I built this one about a year ago. It’s Sitka over Sapele. Plans are pretty much nonexistent. The best I found was a PDF in German (my wife’s first language is German). Do not buy the plans from CAD Guitar Plans, they are beyond terrible, but they were expensive - Like all of my guitars, I drew it up in cad, based on clues from multiple sources. Sounds great!

M

I have built two. They are sister cuts of koa from Notable Tonewoods - Ken cut the extra long pieces needed for tops and backs and sides. There are two good sets of Weissie plans, one is from StewMac, the other I think from the Guild (mine are put away, can go look this up for you). The Guild plans were supposed to be slightly more accurate, where there were differences I followed them.

There was also an article in American Lutherie a while back on building a Weissenborn. He did a slightly different bracing pattern from that shown on the old plans - angled tone bars more like a Martin (the old plans have ladder tone bars in between the X braces. I built one of mine with the traditional bracing, one with the angled bars. Since they are exactly the same wood and everything else that gave a chance to compare. I was building one of this for a friend, one for myself. The deal was that he could take the pick of the litter, I would keep the other one. With side by side playing we both liked the old bracing better but it is very subtle and if I only play mine I'm very happy with it.

Koa is the traditional wood but you see a lot of mahogany Weissenborns. They are named as "styles" - that is mostly how fancy the wood is, the rosette design and the binding. Traditional fancy Weissenborns have rope binding and rosettes - I bound mine in maple to contrast the koa.

Some minor things to think about. I bent the sides on my Fox bender. When I make a body mold the inside pieces become the bending mold. The head block is the end of the neck - think about how that fits into your mold and how you will attach it to the sides. The back of the head block curves to the back of the neck, make sure you have enough flat surface for your tuners. There are no frets but you will need to put fret markers on the board - I used maple inserted in the rosewood. You will want a uniformly flat neck with approximately 3/8 "action" the entire length. A tall nut and saddle will help with this (traditional saddle is a piece of fret wire, I used bone).

The usual pickup that you see people like Ben Harper and David Lindly use is a soundhole magnetic acoustic guitar pup - that is what we put in my friends (I don't remember the brand). Mine has no pickup. Its important to know that a case will fit your guitar, the Beard weissie case fits mine just fine.

I run medium strings with the first and second bumped up a couple more gauges (14 or 16 on top, I forget). I play almost exclusively in open D because I have a dobro for G. You can use some of the steel guitar tunings as well but D is nice for lots of styles of play.

A couple of pictures

Unfortunately neither of those plans exist (I just looked again). I think there are a couple folks on the forum that still have them though.

M

Right on, Guys! Great looking guitars!

SM seems to have dropped the plans, so that's a no go. And I've been through the Guild plans several times and can't find it there, either. The CAD plans are way too expensive! So right now that leaves the ALS plans. My buddy is leaning towards Tasi Blackwood, which is the direction I was looking at, too. Not sure which soundboard to match with that.

Cheers!

_________________
Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

If anyone has these plans, I'd happily pay for a scan or full size copy from Kinkos, plus shipping.

_________________
Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

Here are a couple of links:

https://www.gitarrebassbau.de/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=545

https://www.gitarrebassbau.de/viewtopic ... orn#p18546

M

The MIMF sells Weissenborn plans. They were copied from an original instrument IIRC so they would be fairly authentic to the originals.

http://www.mimf.com/old-lib/weissenborn_plans.gif

Those were the ones that I thought had come from the Guild. They are probably the bench mark.

Great! And for those searching MIMF for the plans, they are not in an obvious place. Here's the link.

http://www.mimf.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1465#p12932

_________________
Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

Sorry about that.
My browser usually opens the site on the index page so it was a bit more obvious ( I didn't realize they weren't linked on the home page):

http://www.mimf.com/phpbb/index.php?sid ... f270162eef

Freeman, apart from the fact that those are really nice looking guitars, there seems to be an awful lot of bracing. Are the bodies so big that they need such a lot of support?

Cheers Dave

Not really, I just follow the plans (more or less). I agree that the backs seem heavily braced - these critters sit on your lap while you play them and the back probably isn't very coupled but otherwise I don't know. The top and back are not domed so maybe the heavier bracing is there to help with humidity swings. They are strung a bit heavy compared to a standard acoustic, but don't have the separate neck and neck block to worry about rotation. There is an additional UTB to help with supporting the end of the fretboard.

My wife jokes that they get their incredible sustain because "notes just go up into the neck and take their time coming back out"

I was surprised by the amount of bracing too. But I'll follow along until I know better.

_________________
Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

Here is the pattern I used on mine. It is definitely braced on the lighter side. Like the drawing it has a rather large bridge plate.

M

I used this
weissenborn Plan twice.
I have downloaded this weissenborn free plans by Benjamin Tur, but in French.

http://free-stock-illustration.com/weis ... 1342548927

this is my 1st Weissenborn

This is the second built

This Weissenborn sound you can watch at my Friends FB. I built this weissy for him.
https://www.facebook.com/yudha.steel.5/ ... 9597012923

and this 1st weissy sound.
https://www.facebook.com/yudha.steel.5/ ... 4478595539

CAUTION - GOT A NORTON WARNING BLOCKING THAT LINK, DANGEROUS WEB PAGE

DID A SEARCH AND FOUND THIS LINK http://kralizec121.free.fr/Plans%20Aymaleo/Weissenborn_Edition-1.pdf

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Funny, I’d have sworn my plans were in German -

Thanks, Colin.

And nice looking guiatars, Herry!

Not sure if I'm moving forward with this, yet. My buddy is still deciding if he needs to go down this rabbit hole. Eventually he will as arthritis in his fretting hand gets worse, but he's not there yet. I may dig around for some scraps in my pile and do a test build. I think I may have some Chechan that could work well.

Cheers!

_________________
Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

I don't want to talk you out of the build but your buddie could just throw a nut extender and a set of slightly heavier strings on some old flat top and start playing lap style. The round neck will slide around on his lap and the action might not be optimal but its a good way to give lap sliding a test run. Open D, open G and high bass G are all good tunings to noodle around with.

Yup. Already on that path. He's got an older Gibson that we've converted. Unfortunately, he got some bad advice many years ago and had the bridge shaved down. Now the saddle slot is pretty shallow, so putting a taller saddle is putting way to much torque on the front of the bridge. And the lower saddle is just too low.

_________________
Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana