R.C. Allen Guitars
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Very cool! Anxious to hear what it sounds like. To bad I am on the East Coast so I can’t play it. Very pretty guitar. I really like the headstock design and the inlay design in it. Looking forward to the video.
Bad ass! I have to be honest Im not usually a fan of darker colored guitars as far as looks but that looks really killer. Cant wait to hear it
I agree,the headstock is great. I can’t wait to hear it. Like Dan said I’m not a huge fan of darker colors on big box guitars, but i’m digging it. I like that you used blade pickups. Okay Grez when your next one is done I want to see a synchromatic like Bill Jennings.
I guess I have a thing for look of the old black with cream binding Gibson Archtops, so this is my version. The next two are sold to Jazzers, so they’ll get regular old humbuckers. One will be more or less like this and one will have a spruce top and floating mini-humbucker. If anyone knows of DeArmond/Dynasonics that fit in a humbucker mount, let me know. I will put them in and see how it goes!
Just finished video 1 of 2 on building a laminated archtop. The second one will be ready in a week or so.
http://youtu.be/VUL7JSc0vYU?list=PL6IdeulebwewBynwj5FG0sl0Fjztp5SnL
Can’t figure out how to make the video show up, but the link works!
And part two is done! I hope you all find this interesting.
http://youtu.be/7VnOp0a7g0I?list=PL6IdeulebwewBynwj5FG0sl0Fjztp5SnL
Very cool videos. I enjoyed both of them very much. I have never seen the laminate guitar being made before, and was always curious as to how it was done. Tell the guy in your second video that I really liked what he did with the tune “Black Orpheus.” My only complaint about the videos is you didn’t show him playing like you did the guy in the first one. LOL.
Grez, Got to play your RC Allen guitar when I was in town visiting Tommy this past week. Very nice guitar. I was impressed. It is something I would buy. It was addicting to play. I played it a couple of days. I loved the low end response that the guitar had. The guitar played very responsively, and the guitar hasn’t even broken in properly yet. Awesome. You could really get it to bark. The only thing I would have changed on the guitar, and is just a personal preference on my end, is I would give the pickups different pot values. This is just so I could get the pickups a little brighter when I wanted. That brand of pickups tend to be on the dark side for me. It works perfect for that guitar doing the jazz thing though. Very nice guitar. If it is not spoken for let me know.
Grez, I also got to play Tommy’s red guitar. That was a nice one as well. I really loved the neck shape on it. Played very well. I only got to play it acoustically while I was up there, but it sounded nice unplugged. Of course Tommy had it sounding good plugged in. It was a fun trip. Paul was a very cool guy.
Thanks Gretschman59, This was my first time using the Vintage Vibe HCC pickups. I had 500k pots in there and it seemed a little bright to me so I put 250s in. That’s what you played. They seem right in terms of brightness with the volume up, but get dark quick as you roll it back. As you mentioned, the sound is pretty right for jazz guys. I think the answer will be 250k pots with a treble bleed. At least that’s what I’ll try next when I have the guitar back at the shop.
The low end and low mid response was something I was purposefully working to enhance by laminating the top differently than everyone else does. Normally the top and back are cross laminated, each layer is rotated 90 degrees from the last. This creates uniform stiffness everywhere. I did make the back this way. If we look at a traditional spruce top archtop, the spruce doesn’t have uniform stiffness everywhere. Cross grain is stiff, neck to tail, longitudinally, it flexes more easily. So by altering the layup of the top, I have tried to mimic this stiffness profile. You see this done with carbon fiber for cars and bicycles and the like all the time to put stiffness where you want it and compliance where you want it.
You usually appreciate the details, so I thought I would rattle on a bit……..
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