Post by scripsit on Oct 9, 2013 0:50:07 GMT
I told Jack I wanted another guitar to investigate some different styles of music, and asked about his OOO shape and the possibility of making it a 12 fret slothead. I could pretend this was about the sweet spot on the soundboard but the truth was I just wanted a smaller slothead guitar. I think the only practical thing driving this was that I got sick of having to alter the tuning all the time on my only good instrument.
I was already fixed on the 650 mm scale length for 0.13 strings and Cocobolo back and sides, if possible. This was after enjoying the sound and feel of his 0000 for eighteen months or so. Then I panicked at the thought of only having 12 frets to get to, and asked him if a cutaway was possible.
He was quite soothing and seemed to think all of this was reasonable, then sent over some drawings of his 000 shape, which he stated was directly based on the Martin original. The shape was longer than I expected. One of his drawings had the conventional pyramid bridge, which I’ve always found attractive, but I figured that the cutaway was non-traditional so I might as well go all the way with the other bits, and so I asked for appointments to match my other Spira: Jack’s art-deco bridge, an identical rosette and so on.
I chose a Cocobolo set with sapwood so I could have a skunk stripe on the back and sent across a Fishman Matrix Blend pickup system for installation when the guitar was finished.
The build was much slower than with my first guitar. He had a couple of festivals and exhibitions to prepare for and a sizeable back log of commissions to clear before much progress was made. Waiting was hard.
When it came time for the machine head selection we had our only bit of controversy. Jack didn’t like the idea of the individual tuners I suggested. He prefers three-on-a-plate tuners to reduce slop and movement as things begin to wear in the slothead itself. I took against the available plate tuners for some reason. Eventually I came across the Schertler individual tuners, and downloaded some documentation about their installation and a couple of reviews. I thought the ebony buttons and brushed aluminium gears had a bit of futurism/art-deco look, and Jack agreed that they seemed more solid than my original choices and installed a set.
So, finally I got Spira #253.
It’s comfortable to play, as it should be, with a fairly narrow waist. The Cocobolo makes it heavy, but this was expected, and the neck feels exactly the same as my 0000 to grip. I can get up to the 15th fret easily with the cutaway. There’s good balance up and down the neck, so playing up high doesn’t do that ‘sizzle’ thing you get with some guitars above the 5th fret.
The biggest shock was the bridge being in a different place to what my hand expected. If you’re used to holding your right hand so that you can palm mute easily when required, the difference in the bridge positioning was immediately apparent. It took about six weeks for it to become automatic to adjust right hand positioning when moving from a 14 fret guitar.
It’s a bigger box than it looks, because of the length. I suppose it’s brighter than the 0000 and has less bass thump, but I think if someone else was playing them both behind a curtain it would be hard to tell them apart. It’s less forgiving than the larger guitar, maybe because it produces slightly less overtones when you play with a light or medium touch. If I don’t make a clean strike with a right hand finger it’s much more audible as a muff, even in a crowded passage. It’s disconcerting, but I think this has been good for my playing, because I’ve been forced recently to revisit pieces I thought I had cold and listen a bit more carefully to the music rather than just running the notes. Trying to record pieces has made all of this more obvious.
It works fine in all of the tunings I’ve experimented with, but almost all of the time now it sits in normal tuning, with occasional excursions into dropped D or double dropped D. I usually stop there, because to go further we’d be in DADGAD and that’s what the other guitar is for.
Scale: 650 mm
Nut Width: 45 mm
Upper Bout width: 280 mm
Lower Bout width: 390 mm
Waist width: 234 mm
Frets to body: 12
Body Length: 515 mm
Back/Sides: Cocobolo
Top Wood: Sitka Spruce
Fingerboard: Ebony
Neck Wood: Mahogany
Bridge: Indian Rosewood
Rosette: Jarrah, Poplar, Pear, Paua shell
Binding: Rose Mahogany
Headplate: Cocobolo
Tuners: Schertler
Pickup: Fishman Matrix Blend (combined undersaddle pickup and internal microphone)
The rosette looks identical to the one on my other Spira, but I notice Jack used different materials to produce it.
I’ve included one shot of the top bracing taken during construction, because Jack has this image on his website, so I assume he is OK with showing it. The others are from immediately after restringing last weekend.
The sound file at the bottom is a single take, spaced pair, from about an hour after restringing, no EQ or effects. It’s a very simple Al Petteway piece in normal tuning with a capo on the second fret.
Bracing
Guitar front
Guitar back
Cutaway
Skunk stripe
End wedge
Headstock
Schertler tuners
License plate
White Island (Al Petteway tune)
I was already fixed on the 650 mm scale length for 0.13 strings and Cocobolo back and sides, if possible. This was after enjoying the sound and feel of his 0000 for eighteen months or so. Then I panicked at the thought of only having 12 frets to get to, and asked him if a cutaway was possible.
He was quite soothing and seemed to think all of this was reasonable, then sent over some drawings of his 000 shape, which he stated was directly based on the Martin original. The shape was longer than I expected. One of his drawings had the conventional pyramid bridge, which I’ve always found attractive, but I figured that the cutaway was non-traditional so I might as well go all the way with the other bits, and so I asked for appointments to match my other Spira: Jack’s art-deco bridge, an identical rosette and so on.
I chose a Cocobolo set with sapwood so I could have a skunk stripe on the back and sent across a Fishman Matrix Blend pickup system for installation when the guitar was finished.
The build was much slower than with my first guitar. He had a couple of festivals and exhibitions to prepare for and a sizeable back log of commissions to clear before much progress was made. Waiting was hard.
When it came time for the machine head selection we had our only bit of controversy. Jack didn’t like the idea of the individual tuners I suggested. He prefers three-on-a-plate tuners to reduce slop and movement as things begin to wear in the slothead itself. I took against the available plate tuners for some reason. Eventually I came across the Schertler individual tuners, and downloaded some documentation about their installation and a couple of reviews. I thought the ebony buttons and brushed aluminium gears had a bit of futurism/art-deco look, and Jack agreed that they seemed more solid than my original choices and installed a set.
So, finally I got Spira #253.
It’s comfortable to play, as it should be, with a fairly narrow waist. The Cocobolo makes it heavy, but this was expected, and the neck feels exactly the same as my 0000 to grip. I can get up to the 15th fret easily with the cutaway. There’s good balance up and down the neck, so playing up high doesn’t do that ‘sizzle’ thing you get with some guitars above the 5th fret.
The biggest shock was the bridge being in a different place to what my hand expected. If you’re used to holding your right hand so that you can palm mute easily when required, the difference in the bridge positioning was immediately apparent. It took about six weeks for it to become automatic to adjust right hand positioning when moving from a 14 fret guitar.
It’s a bigger box than it looks, because of the length. I suppose it’s brighter than the 0000 and has less bass thump, but I think if someone else was playing them both behind a curtain it would be hard to tell them apart. It’s less forgiving than the larger guitar, maybe because it produces slightly less overtones when you play with a light or medium touch. If I don’t make a clean strike with a right hand finger it’s much more audible as a muff, even in a crowded passage. It’s disconcerting, but I think this has been good for my playing, because I’ve been forced recently to revisit pieces I thought I had cold and listen a bit more carefully to the music rather than just running the notes. Trying to record pieces has made all of this more obvious.
It works fine in all of the tunings I’ve experimented with, but almost all of the time now it sits in normal tuning, with occasional excursions into dropped D or double dropped D. I usually stop there, because to go further we’d be in DADGAD and that’s what the other guitar is for.
Scale: 650 mm
Nut Width: 45 mm
Upper Bout width: 280 mm
Lower Bout width: 390 mm
Waist width: 234 mm
Frets to body: 12
Body Length: 515 mm
Back/Sides: Cocobolo
Top Wood: Sitka Spruce
Fingerboard: Ebony
Neck Wood: Mahogany
Bridge: Indian Rosewood
Rosette: Jarrah, Poplar, Pear, Paua shell
Binding: Rose Mahogany
Headplate: Cocobolo
Tuners: Schertler
Pickup: Fishman Matrix Blend (combined undersaddle pickup and internal microphone)
The rosette looks identical to the one on my other Spira, but I notice Jack used different materials to produce it.
I’ve included one shot of the top bracing taken during construction, because Jack has this image on his website, so I assume he is OK with showing it. The others are from immediately after restringing last weekend.
The sound file at the bottom is a single take, spaced pair, from about an hour after restringing, no EQ or effects. It’s a very simple Al Petteway piece in normal tuning with a capo on the second fret.
Bracing
Guitar front
Guitar back
Cutaway
Skunk stripe
End wedge
Headstock
Schertler tuners
License plate
White Island (Al Petteway tune)
Jo whoever he is.
