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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2013 12:29:41 GMT
I noticed Dr John signed up to the forum a couple of weeks back to tell us about his lovely Irish timber guitars, so it was a lovely surprise to see a review by David Mead in this month's Acoustic Magazine. To me this looked like a thoroughly modern guitar, even though every part of it used natively grown (and in some cases very old) timber. The use of yew for the neck and fingerboard I thought was very unusual but gave it a stunnning look overall.
I'm not so sure about the body shape personally, with its very broad shoulders (looking for all its worth like an Irish prop forward!), but David's very lovely review at least got me interested. And of course the use of native timbers is very much to my liking given my own Tavy. And how wonderful is it to be able to trace almost every piece of wood back to a specific location in Ireland.
Good stuff, and hope to find out more about these wonderful, and original looking guitars,
Robbie
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Post by earwighoney on Jul 7, 2013 16:28:07 GMT
I came across a few interesting projects of guitars made from all native materials, and the one that I found the most interesting was a guy who made a parlour guitar from a few planks from a old barn, which was made from oak (I imagine it's white oak) and pine for the soundboard. The neck, back and sides, fretboard everything was made from oak. White Oak is a seldom used choice for guitars, but it makes some great guitars (Haans Brentup's guitars sound amazing). Here is the thread with pictures There are a lot of oak trees here, I'd be intrigued to see someone make a guitar from it here.
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Post by pnut on Jul 7, 2013 17:54:20 GMT
The 2nd vid at the end of the thread sounds awesome, huge sound for such a small guitar!
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Post by jcatherwood on Aug 6, 2013 13:02:22 GMT
I noticed Dr John signed up to the forum a couple of weeks back to tell us about his lovely Irish timber guitars, so it was a lovely surprise to see a review by David Mead in this month's Acoustic Magazine. To me this looked like a thoroughly modern guitar, even though every part of it used natively grown (and in some cases very old) timber. The use of yew for the neck and fingerboard I thought was very unusual but gave it a stunnning look overall. I'm not so sure about the body shape personally, with its very broad shoulders (looking for all its worth like an Irish prop forward!), but David's very lovely review at least got me interested. And of course the use of native timbers is very much to my liking given my own Tavy. And how wonderful is it to be able to trace almost every piece of wood back to a specific location in Ireland. Good stuff, and hope to find out more about these wonderful, and original looking guitars, Robbie Hi Robbie Thanks for the mention - and what more would you like to know? I appreciate the "prop forward" comment - most rugby players I know have deep voices! The upper bout on our parlour is larger than the usual Martin copy, but it is inspired by the Lacote guitars of the of the 19th century, which were the origin of the "parlour" size. I believe that the larger upper bout gives more volume (as in capacity, not noise) to the body, lowering its harmonic resonance, and allowing a much fuller bass and mid range response, while maintaining the relatively short body length and small lower bout size - hence the review saying that my guitar has little trace of the boxy sound that most parlours have, and the (coughs modestly) five stars for sound quality...Yew polishes up to an almost glassy finish and makes excellent fingerboards with a silky feel. It is a bit bright coloured when new, but oxidises to a deeper honey colour over the years. For those who like a light fretboard we also have Crab Apple, the hardest native wood in Ireland, which has a creamy colour, or for dark wood fans (limited amounts of) laburnum, which is a chocolate and gold colour. If you would like to hear and see more of my instruments - www.youtube.com/CatherwoodGuitars has some recordings - there is a little video of PJ D'Atri playing that parlour at Frankfurt (IMG3454) but there is too much background noise to really hear it - but there are decent studio recordings of the others. If you (or anyone else) are ever near Belfast do contact me and you can come and see the workshop - I won't call it a tour because the place is so small you can stand in one spot and see everything - but we usually have some interesting wood and few intrusments to see and try out. Cheers John
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Aug 6, 2013 13:30:14 GMT
Thanks for the channel link, John. This one sounds and looks gorgeous -
Keith
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Post by Phil Taylor on Aug 6, 2013 15:26:23 GMT
I noticed Dr John signed up to the forum a couple of weeks back to tell us about his lovely Irish timber guitars, so it was a lovely surprise to see a review by David Mead in this month's Acoustic Magazine. To me this looked like a thoroughly modern guitar, even though every part of it used natively grown (and in some cases very old) timber. The use of yew for the neck and fingerboard I thought was very unusual but gave it a stunnning look overall. I'm not so sure about the body shape personally, with its very broad shoulders (looking for all its worth like an Irish prop forward!), but David's very lovely review at least got me interested. And of course the use of native timbers is very much to my liking given my own Tavy. And how wonderful is it to be able to trace almost every piece of wood back to a specific location in Ireland. Good stuff, and hope to find out more about these wonderful, and original looking guitars, Robbie Thanks for posting that Rob, I must have missed it in the mag - I think I lost the will to live ploughing through the 48 or so full pages of adverts Phil
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