Tribute in a chair

Started by sjhoffma, March 31, 2009, 06:15:12 PM

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sjhoffma

I believe we already had a section on chairs for Alembic owners here on this forum, but I thought I would post this up anyway...
 
We had to make half scale chairs for my 3D art class at UVM, and the instant I found out we were going to be working with wood, I already had some ideas. The tiger shaped back was a must!
 
The mandolin neck was added on later in the construction process, when my teacher saw my tiger idea and responded, wow it looks like a guitar! I'd really like to see you add a neck to this.  
 
So heres the final product... not big enough to sit on, but you get the idea...

sjhoffma

by the way, the laminate top is flamed koa, which I had actually bookmatched/ joined together earlier in the year, and just kinda had laying around.

David Houck

I looked at the picture before reading the text.  Looked like a guitar sitting in a chair.  Then noticed there were no strings; then noticed there were eight tuners.  Then decided I better read the text.

sjhoffma

Just for the hell of it, and in response to dave's post I thought I would share a pic with you all of an actual guitar that I've built. I love the flame on the back and the neck. The top is bearclaw spruce. I made this guitar back when I was 17, over a summer in Nazareth, PA.




dadabass2001

Excellent, Sam
I take it the mando neck is full size? That gives  me a sense of scale.
 
Mike
"The Secret of Life is enjoying the passage of Time"
- James Taylor

David Houck


gtrguy

That's too similar to playing on a tiny stage with the drum kit or another musician stuck up your backside for me!
 
Looks beautiful, though.
Dave

frank

sjhoffma, what kind of finish did you use (for the arch-top and the chair)? How did you apply it?

tdukes

That looks a lot like a Benedetto Manhattan. Very cool. I like the bearclaw in the top. Could you see it before the finish was applied?
 
Todd.

chrisalembic

wow you built this guitar?? its looking great!! how does it play?

sjhoffma

I used a light amber stain, a tung oil finish, and then i sprayed a few light of coats of lacquer on it. The pictures were taken before the lacquer was applied.
 
I could see some of the bearclaw before applying the finish, but the majority of it popped out after the stain. I was affraid to delve into finishing it at first, but the process was fairly simple.
 
The finished product sounds great! its really loud, and I play it mostly acoustic, although I did install a ken armstrong pickup right under the neck.
 
As for the chair, yes it doesn't look comfortable, it was more of a design sort of thing than a practicality. And for the chair, I just used a simple polyurethane finish, because it was purley for display, I would never touch a guitar with polyurethane. It really made the figure in the koa come out nicely though.

hydrargyrum


frank

did you take a course to learn to build arch-tops?

sjhoffma

I did in fact take a class. I took one with Dale Unger from American Archtop guitars, who was actually the only apprentice of Bob Bennedetto. He offers classes in his workshop a few times each year, and walks you through the build process. It was very informative, and after we made a guitar together, I was able to make this one myself a year later, and since have worked on a handful of guitar projects, including a koa and bearclaw spruce flat top acoustic, that is currently in progress.