New blog, new guitar

Hello, welcome to my new blog.

I thought I'd start off with a few pictures of my latest guitar, it's quite rare I get to build an archtop and this one is a little different from my usual Manorbiers. It is built using laminated woods rather than solid carved timbers. This makes building a little easier as I don't have to spend weeks carving the soundboard and back, although it is tricky and time consiming laying up all the laminates. The reasoning behind using laminates instead of solid woods is that solid soundboards and backs are prone to feedback on electric archtops at high volume.

No such problems so far, and it has been to a high volume, The woods used are laminated sitka spruce for the soundboard, maple/ poplar/maple laminates for the back and sides, mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard and bridge and mother of pearl inlays on the headstock and fingerboard, finish is Nitro cellulose.

The pickups were hound wound by David of heavy air pickups and sound great!

Many thanks to the Manorbiers' new owner Bob for the lovely photos.

I will have a new guitar available soon, the prototypes are finished and sound very promising, so watch this space!

Rich

http://www.richardmeyrickguitars.co.uk/manorbier%20archtop.html