Official Luthiers Forum!

Very dapper piece of work Arnt.


Cheers

_________________

------------------------------------------------------
Bob Connor
Geelong, Australia

Very cool Arnt!   

_________________
Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

Thanks for filling me in on the tuning, string gauges, and tensions, Arnt.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

First class! Beautiful instrument Arnt!

Long

_________________
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

Beautiful work. Congrats.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Very nice work Arnt!

_________________
Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Thanks for the answer Arnt.  I have seen lots of bouzoukis, but never one liike this.  I bet it sounds great.  I spend my October November weekends at a Ren Fest., so I've seen a good many bouzouki/fiddle combinations, and they are always pretty "trebbely"(is that a word?).  This should be a pleasing departure.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

BEAUTIFUL!!!!
What did you use for a finish?

Waddy, yes the customer was quite pleased with how it turned out. I just delivered it, and it was great listening to it in his hands. And just now I got a message from him on my phone with a lot of wows! and !!!! marks, that is always fun!

Robbie, the finish is nitro over a Z-poxy filler.

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Thanks, and Congratulations Arnt!

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Congrats Arnt!
It’s always refreshing to see an 8 string for a change.
Especially one as nice as this!
And thanks for the specs too!
Very inspiring work.

Wade

_________________
Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

AAAA Arnt awesome as always.

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Wonderful Arnt, puts the one I made UTTERLY to shame.

I'd love to play it.........

the bar just gets higher and higher huh?

_________________
My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

Arnt, that is one Top Drawer instrument!!!

Gorgeous in all respects! WOW!

_________________
I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

[QUOTE=Arnt] One problem I see is that the G stings (.017) are a bit slack, so we may go up to .024 on those and see how that works.[/QUOTE]
Arnt, it's been my experience that thick plain strings are really dead-sounding, delivering more of a "thunk" than a "ring." If you used .024" wound strings, that would sound good. Or is that what you meant all along?

BTW, if wound .024's are too heavy, you should be able to find wound strings down to .018".

Oops! Wound .018's would probably be more slack than plain .017's. Never mind.

Arnt,
Just beautiful! I love Bouzouki's that are not the traditional shape. The one I did was a lattice braced top, and it just rings and rings. Did you do a lattice top?

On mine I used the same string sizes paired up. I see you did the same. This really gives it a lot more bottom end, and I'm sure that is why the customer is so thrilled. You really are making us look bad, stop it!

Big congrats to you, and wish I was there to play it!
Tracy

_________________
Tracy
http://www.luthiersuppliers.com

[QUOTE=CarltonM] If you used .024" wound strings, that would sound good. Or is that what you meant all along? [/QUOTE]

Yes Carlton, I meant wound strings. I am not sure what gauge we will end up with on the G strings, I guess we will test some different sizes and see what works.

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Hi Tracy, this instrument is braced with traditional X-braces and tonebars. Everything is very light though; it is 7 mm wide, "forward shifted", the rear X-brace legs are feathered down before the linings, and I was not shy about scalloping. The tone bars are really low. The idea was to bring out some bottom end, so I figured the top needed to be loose, and it seem to have worked.

Thanks again for all the nice words everybody, they are very encouraging!

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Again top notch work!!! Excellent finish! Did you do it? You've got to have the best inlay branding. Very good work!

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Hi Billy, yes I do all my own finishing; let me know if you hear of someone who finishes guitars for others in northern Europe OK? I don't enjoy it that much to tell you the truth, and boy is it a lot of work! What does inlay branding mean, you mean my headstock logo? It is just my signature, and I cut each one with a jewler's saw. Luckily my handwriting is not too pretty and the letters don't all connect, so it is pretty easy to cut; I can get away with some irregularities, I just blame it on my handwriting. I am glad you like it, though!

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Fantastic instrument. I am aware of Andreas' music and would love to hear this guitar bouzouki w. hardanger fiddle. If you keep in touch with Andreas, please let me know when a recording of this instrument comes out. It look really great and I think that tuned down it should be the perfect compliment to the sound of the hardanger fiddle. Because of the sympathetic strings of the fiddle already add the the treble sound, this guitar bouzouki should really fill out the sound.

Arnt...I am currently purchasing a historic hardanger fiddle from an elderly man in hordaland that I am going to do a measured plan and reproduction of before donating the original to the Norwegian American museum her in the US along with other music related items I have from when the oldest branch of my family immigrated from Selbu and Risa (near Trondheim) to the US.

I really like the bridge and think the understated snakewood rosette is very classy.

Well done.

One more win for the Scandinavian OLF

Wow, you know Andreas's music? Small world!

Here are a couple of YouTube clips of him. The first one is called Sprengar and he plays a Weisenborn, the other one is called Heling and he plays a baritone on that. I'm looking forward to the clip where he plays a guitar bouzouki!

I'll be interested in hearing how your Hardanger fiddle project turns out (we call them "hardingfele" BTW); now that is one intricate "build"!

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

[QUOTE=Arnt]let me know if you hear of someone who finishes guitars for others in northern Europe OK? I don't enjoy it that much to tell you the truth[/QUOTE]
Well, that's unfortunate, because YOU could be the guy! Considering the way that this one looks, I bet you'd get a lot of business! Too bad for NE builders that you've got that annoying architecture job.

Arnt,

I know Andreas' music through a round about connection. The label he is on also did an album of Siri Gj?re. Siri did two albums with Tord Gustavsen titled Aire and Angels I and II (different label). Because I was able to hang out and play with Tord when he was touring the US a few months ago, I was told about Siri so in checking out her Album on Bergland, and found Andreas' album "Maus". I now have his other records also.

What I like about his music is that he takes traditional Norwegian folk tunes and interprets them in a way that they seem modern and yet preserve the original elements of the tune. On the Sprengar video above even though he is playing a weisenborn, the melody is still Norwegian.

That and because of my heritage am destined to be drawn to all things Trondelag

For my reproduction hardingfele I am also thinking of doing a guitar version with the same over the top ornamentation as the fele. I have seen other builders that have done sympathetic strings on guitars such as Fred Carlson's pieces of art or Linda Manzer's harp guitar and Picasso guitars that she built for Pat Metheny but I have not seen a norwegian guitar that attempted to be a hardanger guitar. It would be completely experimental but for open tuning, who knows...it might sound really cool.

A long time ago I built a parlor guitar in which the decoration was rosemaling and was played by a friend at Norwegian American festivals for dances. I have made rosettes in which I copied the patterns of klokkestreng and simple rosemaling.