Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Cascadia archtops




I am happy to report that I have completed both the Cascadia 16 archtop bodies started this spring. I am now working on finishing the necks this week and getting them ready for the finish booth. These guitars have both been incredibly satisfying to build. Yesterday found me fitting the dovetail joint, gluing the brasilian rosewood fingerboard down and cutting my pearl logo for the headplate. Today I glued the board and headplate and started roughing the neck out on the thinline.
Thurs / Fri will find me doing the same on the full depth maple / euro spruce model.
After a rather long search for figured air dried maple neck wood I decided to stick with Honduran Mahogany on both necks. This is my favorite of all tonewoods and makes great stable necks with sweet warm overtones.
I am really staying true to the vintage archtop feel of these necks with a 7-1/4 " radius on the fingerboards and a slight "V" profile with plenty of depth. I find the old "Epiphones" and "Gibsons" have really sweet necks with more depth than the more modern versions. To my mind they through the baby out with the bathwater when they started making thinner necks with a flatter fingerboard.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

That looks like a sweet guitar!