Here are the two archtop guitars that I've made. This one was really my first guitar, made in 2015, but I call it number two because I made a tele copy out of plywood and an old Tiesco Del Ray teardrop Vox copy when I was 16, 42 years ago now.
This one is called "Firewood Guitar", because all of the curly maple trim is from logs I took out of my firewood pile. I burned about 4 tons of curly maple that winter, and grabbed a few to resaw and see what I could do with it.
This is an experimental guitar. The top is from western red cedar that I bought long ago as a piece of decking from Home Depot. Perfectly quarter sawn, about 6" wide after trimming, and the top is four pieces wide. Fully carved per the Benedetto formula, and X braced. Neck is mahogany with a birdseye maple fretboard. The back is 2" thick solid mahogany with a 1" strip of maple added for strength, and fully chambered out so that there is a 1/2" rim and 1/2" thick back. So it's a completely hollow solid body with a carved arched top. The pickup is a neck mounted Johnny Smith type, full sized humbucker. Volume control on the curly maple finger rest. The idea was to get all of the sustain and tone of a solid body instrument, with the tone fully informed by the carved top. It worked great, it is a fantastic sounding jazz guitar with a lot of sustain and sensitivity. It's a bit heavy, though.
