My standard instruments are offered in dark, master grade East Indian Rosewood and your choice of any soundboard wood, French Polished soundboard, Gotoh Tuners with Ivoroid buttons, bone nut and saddle. A very high quaility Ameritage case is also standard, with built in hygrometer and humidifier. An ownership certificate/guarantee is included.

Conservatory

$3,200

Grand Legacy, Concert Grand, American Concert, Woodsong. Homage: ‘37 Hauser, Santos Flamenco, Torres.

$4,800

Quattro (Double Top, Double Back, Double Sides, Tunable Acoustic Port, Calton case.)

$10,000

Double Top: (ex. Conservatory)
The Double Top soundboard allows the guitar to be more powerful while broadening the tonal palette achieving deeper basses and colorful trebles. For the player this becomes apparent when evaluating it with a conventional guitar in side by side listening comparisons. The differences are immediately apparent in favor of the Double Top and I have yet to find a player who wouldn't agree.

$1,600

Acoustic Port:
I recommend this option as it seems to broaden the tonal range of the instrument. The design comes from Native American art and is hundreds of years old, it takes a fair amount of handwork to carve into the reinforced upper bout. I recognize that not everyone wishes to have the Acoustic Port with their guitar and so I make this optional for a reasonable charge.

$200

Neck Designs:
I use a conventional neck or a low profile elevated neck available your choice at no extra charge. I supply my 650mm scale necks at a standard 52mm wide at the first fret on the fingerboard. The thickness is 21mm at the first fret and 23mm at the ninth fret. The shape has been refined over many guitars and is what I would describe as low oval in configuration. The fingerboard is essentially flat with a mild progressive radius as it nears the soundhole. The fret tangs are nipped on the treble side so that they will never stick out from the fingerboard. I typically use a 43mm string spacing with a 4.5mm land area on the outside of the treble “E” string. 630mm and 640mm scales are available.

These shapes and dimensions are well proven over many clients and they represent contemporary preferences of evolved players. I would strongly recommend that you go with the standard for both playability and resale reasons, but if you have absolute must have requirements, I will certainly work with you.

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Rosettes: (click to see rosette gallery)

• The Spirit Path - Native American design.
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• The Art Nouveau - a striking contemporary design in Burled woods.
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• The Front Range - Grain of Wheat Purflings and Burl.
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Binding/Purfling:
I use Ebony, Rosewood or Curly Koa bindings depending on the body woods chosen. All purflings are mitered in the tradition unless the wood requires otherwise. See various examples in the models section.

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Tuners:

Cases:

Finish:
My standard guitar features French Polish in shellac at no extra charge. I use a Special Kusmi seedlac shellac which is the hardest, most durable that I have found. Shellac is somewhat fragile during the early years but continues to build toughness and will outlast any other finish. Because of the French Polish application method the finish is very thin and therefore acoustically transparent. There ... take a deep breath there are no more options!

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For an in depth description of tonewoods and how they contribute to my guitars, please see the tonewood section.

Soundboards:
I offer these soundboard woods all in properly seasoned Master Grade:

• European Spruce. (preferred) from Switzerland, Germany or Italy.
• Engelmann Spruce.
• Colorado Blue Spruce.
• Western Red Cedar.
• Old Growth Redwood. (Salvaged from the timbers of old Fort Ross built in the early 1800‘s)

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Back and Side Tonewoods: