And now for something completely different

[Paul Eisenbrey]

Well, maybe not *completely* different. This is an experimental guitar I built to solve several problems I had with the OMs I've been building. First, they are just too darn loud to play while other folks in the house are watching the TV. Second, they feedback horribly on stage, even at very moderate volumes. That is, anything that can be heard above the drum set. Third, It drives me nuts that any fret above 16 are basically unusable, since my build skills aren't up to a cutaway yet.

So, without further ado, the FlatJack:

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It is an acoustic, build on an electric platform. Very like the Godin (thanks, guys, for mentioning Godin's when I was looking for advice on this project), except it is completely hollow, unlike the Godin's I tried at the store.

So, the specs:

Body: Single piece of Mahogany,
Soundboard: $15 spruce from LMII -- their cheapest board.
Neck: Port Orford cedar/lumberyard oak sandwitch (24.5 inch scale)
Fretboard: Madagascar Rosewood
Amplification: K&K pure minis
Finish: Tru-Oil.

I hollowed out the body blank to 6mm, except for the upper bout, which I left at 12mm. For the back bracing, I just them carved into the blank instead of gluing more pieces in.

The neck is a set neck, glued into a routed pocket in the body. Several times simpler than fitting a mortise and tenon neck into a standard acoustic.

The results are quite gratifying. I can reach all 22 of the frets easily. One side effect of the electric style neck is that the action is very low, and very easy to play. Very similar to playing an electric. And (with the back panel in place) it doesn't feed back, even at levels that caused complaints from my neighbors in Tierra Del Fuego . It is louder than I'd hoped. But that is the only downside.

Tonewise, it is as you'd expect. A bit like a parlor guitar, with good highs and reasonable mids. But the low notes suffer quite a bit from the small, narrow body. And there are considerably fewer overtones across the board than on my OM builds. That is not necessarily a bad thing. One problem with the OM builds is that my voice (which is weak and mid-rangy) is easily covered by the guitar unless I capo up about 6 frets. This guitar leaves enough of the midrange unoccupied that I can hear me sing. Nice for me, not so much for anyone else in the area .

I welcome any comments, questions, and critiques...

--Paul

[nnickusa]

Love it! Interesting body shape and a clever derivation of a more or less existing platform to get what you wanted. Well done.

PS: You didn't waste much time did you?

[Patrick Hanna]

I think it's a very interesting, attractive shape and you've brought the whole thing together visually in a very nice way. I am not as confident about carved-in back braces because I think applied braces--cross grain--would be much stronger. However, it's your own experimental instrument so I'm sure it won't get any abuse.
I'm curious about the inlay material in the headstock. It's very attractive, but what is it?
Nice concept and great execution!
Patrick

[Paul Eisenbrey]

Thanks guys!

I like the shape myself. I stole the ideas from other guitars and did my best to blend them. The lower bout and cutaway are straight off a Les Paul. The wide shoulders I stole from a Parker acoustic I tried at guitar center a few years back. I really liked the look. Too bad the guitar itself was such a dog. I widened the waist to blend the two shapes together smoothly.

The inlay is some faux turquoise I picked up from LMI. I had no idea what it was made of until it arrived. Turned out to be some form of plastic, with a very realistic tint job. It cuts very easily, and once you have it under some finish, looks convincingly like turquoise to me.

Once I finish the OM and parlor on my bench, I'm going to make another FlatJack. This time with better materials, and fewer mistakes. I probably will glue proper braces on the back in the future, Patrick. I agree that getting some cross-grain strength in the back is important. At 6mm, the wood is thin enough to worry me about its stability, especially where the grain runs the short way through the sides.

--Paul