Brown - Archtops
 

A few photos from some of my latest builds. This one is a 17" acoustic archtop, sugar maple, african blackwood, adirondack.

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Harmonically tuned string afterlengths
12 gram all rosewood bridge & saddle
Stainless steel frets
Armstrong Floating P90 with Ultratonic soundboard transducers
25.4″ scale, 1 3/4″ nut
Bold rich acoustic tone, lightweight and highly responsive, just over 5 lbs

Good looking stuff Tad! Look forward to seeing you at LaConner.

Beautiful. I like the burst and the rounded edges on the back of the headstock. Actually, I like pretty much everything about the way it looks.

Nice!

.....

Sweet! Love the unique sound holes!

Thanks Ryan, really looking forward to checking out what you guys are building too. See you at the show.

Thanks man, I spend a lot of time hand sanding and contouring all edges and corners. Spraying the color coat is also one of the most exciting stages. Lotta masking and detailing.

Thank you.

Thanks so much Louie

Absolutely a work of art. How hours does it take? How do you choose the type of wood and then choose the specific piece of wood that will become a Brown? (I'm not very smartly with these things... can you tell by the looking at the grain? Do you use any high tech equipment?

I'm sorry if I'm a pain. It's just so beautiful

Very handsome guitar Tad. Beautiful work.

No problem, I like highly figured woods, dry, seasoned, well quartered with minimal runout.

Luckily maple is still readily available, unlike many of the exotic woods.

European is nice to carve, bigleaf can be challenging, but spectacularly flamey. They all sound good when carved light enough.

Adirondack spruce is particularly stiff and can be thinned way down, super light weight and strong, responsive like a canon.

I try to strip away any unnecessary mass in the top, back, heel, and especially bridge, which is brazilian rosewood, for the best tone transfer imo.

There are a lot of possible wood choice combos, which can all work, with thoughtful consideration.

Yeah handling the wood, flexing, tapping, looking at the end grain, can give you a pretty good idea.

As far as hours go, archtops are really intensive. For awhile I was chainsaw carving tops and backs, but have since switched to roughing by cnc.

There's still a ton of handwork though, carefully working the plates down to final dimension by hand with a plane and scraper. Usually about 6-8 weeks start to finish.

Thanks,

Tad

Thanks Paul

Nice stuff. Don’t you love that Carruth scraper?

Steve

Tad it is nice to see an archtop luthier posting in the AGF custom shop...:). Red Maple being native to Michigan was a favorite of Gibson in Kalamazoo. We see way more Bigleaf Maple, Sycamore maple and Sugar Maple (typically flatsawn to show birdseye figure) these days.

Hats off to the Curruth scraper, and his Abralon bowling ball pads recommendation, fantastic!

Thanks, good to be here.

Many people think of f-holes as 'electric guitars', but originally they were pure acoustic. I like to build them lightweight and loud as a Martin.

Red maple is a beauty alright. Nice easy carving, gorgeous color, plentiful supply...

Of the soft maples, bigleaf is even slightly softer, but more difficult with extremely curly grain.

Just about to start spraying finish on this one here:

http://brown.guitars/wp-content/uplo...2/DSC_1684.jpg

Absolutely beautiful.

One of these days I want to attempt to build an arch top.

The above pictured slices of Bigleaf maple.


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http://brown.guitars/wp-content/uplo...wn-archtop.jpg

Very nice...thanks for sharing...:up:

Love the saddle...what is it?

Thank you.

Thanks. The bridge & saddle are both rosewood. A slotted base, with a removable acoustic guitar style saddle, carved down to the most minimal footprint like a classical instrument. No metal parts, weighs almost nothing, allowing the top to be really responsive.

Oval Hole Acoustic Archtop
 

Red Maple, African blackwood, Adirondack, Ultratonic pickup, one piece arm and rib rest contours...

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Video- Sean McGowan 'My Romance'
https://brown.guitars/wp-content/upl...05/Image44.jpg

CC Gold
 

Here's a 15 1/2" OM size archtop based around a repro of the 1936 Charlie Christian pickup.
Red maple, african blackwood, adirondack...
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Tad those are truely beautiful instruments. I really like your use of maple binding around the maple body. Its especially nice in the last set of pictures. And the all wood bridge and saddle with no adjustment wheel is just an admirable commitment to the acoustic heritage of the arch top guitar.

Tad,
There are so many features that I love about your guitars and your beautifully transitioned sunbursts. However, I think my favorite is your surgically precise miters on your F-hole bindings. Truly impeccable craftsmanship sir!

PS, PM sent.

Nice ... love the burst!

Beautiful Guitars but I'm really impressed by the photography of your instruments. Do you take your own photos?

Mike

I am marveling at how he bent the binding in such a tight radius for the F hole. ;)