How to Buy Handmade Acoustic Guitars - Part 2
Most Are A Testament to Fine Building Techniques and Artwork, But Are They Worth it?
With Handmade Acoustic Guitars, the back and side woods will greatly affect the tone of the instrument. Brazilian and East Indian Rosewoods will be very loud and bright sounding. The notes will sound for a very long time. Mahogany will be warm and a bit more muted.
Walnut will be very warm - some of my favorite finger picking guitars were made from walnut. Maple and Birch will be bright, but not project nearly as well as the Rosewoods. Koa will be very loud, warm and bright sounding - I love koa guitars for fingerstyle too.
When purchasing a Handmade Acoustic Guitar, make sure you can select your own back and side wood sets. If you desire a highly figured wood, you should be able to select it yourself. Don't be afraid to experiment as well.
Langejans Handmade Acoustic Guitars
There are some additional exotic woods out there that are excellent sound producers such as Ziricote, Southeast Asian Rosewood Cocobolo and Escrito. Some of the more exotic woods are becoming very hard to obtain so your selection may be somewhat limited.
Be a bit careful with wood figure too. Certain woods that are highly figured will crack more easily as the figure can be a weak point within the wood. With certain woods, straight grain is the most premium wood, such as East Indian Rosewood.
I strongly recommend a laminated neck. The neck stock should be ripped down the center and flipped so the grain opposes each piece and the neck will not warp. Either high-strength aluminum, steel or an adjustable tension rod is required. Also consider a 3/8" wide ebony strip in the center of the neck, which is similar to a classical guitar.
Fingerboard - either ebony, ebony or ebony. Clear enough? Same with the bridge. Neck materials most often match the body wood, but you can vary from that. With some of the hardwoods being extremely heavy consider going with a lighter weight wood such as mahogany to give the guitar a better balance.
Music123:
Guitar Center:
American Musical Supply:
--Frets 18% nickel/silver content with normal sized frets. No oversized or undersized frets as this will affect the playability and normal wear of the fret material.
Purfling Protects the Edges of a Handmade Acoustic Guitar
In a handmade acoustic guitar, purfling is a visual choice. I prefer wood myself as it blends with the back and sides and can be offset with multi-colored veneers of white and black. I think wood adds to the tone of the guitar. Keep in mind one of the job descriptions of purfling is to protect the guitar from side dings.
Plastic does a better job of protection, but keep in mind that plastic is an insulator - it will dampen sound too. Oh and the other job of the purfling? To protect the top and side wood end grain from being exposed and sucking up moisture, thus warping the back and top of the guitar. So on your Handmade Acoustic Guitar, be sure to request wood binding or purfling.
Handmade Acoustic Guitar with Elaborate Back Inlay
Saddle and nut materials are very important. At a very minimum select good quality bone. But look at aged bone or recycled ivory as another option - expensive but worth it. If you think about it, the nut and saddle is the initial material that transfers the sound from the strings to the next sound-producing material and plays a very critical role.
When it comes to decoration and personalizing your guitar, you can be conservative or go wild and you have this kind of versatility with a handmade acoustic guitar. This is were you can spend an extreme amount of money and not contribute one bit to sound or playing quality. It is completely up to you.
So if you have made the decision to purchase a handmade acoustic guitar, you will not be disappointed. This is as close to perfection in a 6-string guitar that you can get and a fraction of the cost of a vintage instrument.
