NYLON STRING ARCHTOP

As its name implies, the nylon string archtop combines the tone, playability and aesthetics of a nylon string flat top guitar with a traditional archtop guitar. Instead, it has a warm and woody tone, very open and full-bodied, but also has the punch and drive that acoustic archtops are famous for. In my opinion it works best with a 14 fret neck, but I have built some very nice ones with 12 frets to the body. The overall construction is very light, with the Engelmann spruce soundboard at approximately 4mm thick under the bridge. The X brace is also much lighter and voiced to achieve the loudest and fullest tone with the spruce top. The unbound f-holes can be any of the shapes I use that the customer prefers. The tailpiece is made of ebony with a tie-block design. Available body sizes are 14″, 14 ½”, 15″ and 16″. Because of the lesser tension of nylon strings, body sizes larger than 16″ are not an option. Neck dimensions are as per customer’s preference. However, because of the lesser tension of nylon strings, body sizes larger than 15″ are not recommended.