Guitarbench Magazine Issue 4. Andy Manson's guitar featuring Sonic Sitka top.

Sonic Beauty Andy Manson’s take on Sonic Sitka In May 2011, I received a package from the USA containing a bookmatched pair of Sitka spruce boards. This was the introduction to my participation in a truly fascinating project. I was to be part of a group of luthiers chosen to each build a guitar to their own design using a soundboard from the same log of spruce. The finished guitars would then be subjected to technological inspection, catalogued and kept accessible for further reference over many years to come. A recorded study of the effect of age on the sound quality of guitars. This has always been a somewhat mythical appreciation without hard evidence. When I was first accepted into the project I experienced some apprehension as to whether I could come up to the mark, in such illustrious company. Well, the wood arrived and as soon as I felt it and heard it's life, the way became clear. I spent a bit of time visualising the potential, sonically and visually, and what type of guitar it could be.

It had the stiffness to allow for a fairly large instrument, and enough voice to give a strong treble with plenty of space for the bottom end. Medium jumbo with cutaway, longish scale, .011” - .052” phosphors. Since the spruce was so lively, let's keep it that way, with 100 year old reclaimed Indian rosewood for the bridge and fingerboard. I didn't want to risk the 115 year old undocumented Brazilian rosewood stock I have. I'd recently used some “blistered” maple with success, which visually looks splendid and has a very compliant sonic nature, not to confusingly colour the spruce tone.

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ACOUSTIC&CLASSICAL

Issue 4 2012

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An old Honduras mahogany door frame would make a nice lively neck, laminated with 5 mm black walnut in the centre. Some tulip wood I've had for about 30 years for the binding would make a warm link between the deep colour of the spruce,the pale maple and the rich red of the mahogany. Then, since I live in Portugal, olive root for the head facing, a strip of it inset between purflings around the sound hole and front edge, and a wedge of the same in the tail block inlay, just to finish it off.

Antique gold “Gotoh� tuners with black buttons, ebony bridge pins with pearl dots, pearl dots in the side of the fingerboard and an ebony strap peg in the tail. Just a little pearl flourish in the twelfth fret, and, well, that seemed to be the recipe defined.

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I generally use cherry for the bridge plate, as I have a lot of offcuts (I use cherry a lot for back and sides), and it has all the right qualities. Sonically good, strong, and doesn't split out much when drilling the pin holes. As for gluing it all together, I've used “Titebond original” for many years now, so that's the adhesive. As a final touch, I've been favouring a mottled green “Corian” for nut and saddle of late. Wood looks nice with leaves on it. This material I find to have very pure sonic connection, without compromising the string and wood sound.

You have to be careful with perfect bearing surfaces to avoid crushing, but then I guess that should be normal practice anyway. Sometimes I feel a harsh white nut and saddle stand out visually a bit too strongly.

To maintain the theme and keep things simple, the truss rod cover to be of olive root, disappearing in the headstock facing. And of course the finish. My experience tells the best way to hear all of the wood is with an oil finish. I've been using a preparation of tung oil with some other natural ingredients (strictly no petrochemicals or synthetics) with excellent results.

So that was the recipe. As to method, I would maintain my usual practice, not wishing to introduce any unknowns apart from the unusually stiff and lively Sitka top. Voicing the soundboard was really a matter of, as usual, listening to the wood while shaping the sound bars, placed as I would under normal circumstances, and continually assessing the stiffness in various areas while trimming the bars. I have to say, the whole process of handling that spruce kept me thinking “if only I could have an ongoing stock of this.....�

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Finally, on stringing up, the usual anti climax came over me, with a general sense of wondering what on earth possessed me to imagine I know what I'm doing. This always happens, then I shuffle off and drink coffee for a spell, returning half an hour later to find the instrument starting to wake up- sit down with it and run through my party pieces. This guitar turned out, over the next couple of days, to bring me to the belief that it is certainly the best I've made out of about a thousand instruments in over forty years. It is improving daily. I would love to keep it, but I would rather it went to someone who could really do it justice. Before that I have to make a recording of its response to a controlled stimulus. This a requirement for the “Sonic Sitka� project, and will be repeated periodically in years to come. The experience of building this guitar has been enlightening for me, and reassuring that my expectation from first touch of the spruce was realised. I now have to set an elevated standard for my work. I am grateful to Denis Merrill and Terence Tan for facilitating this.

Andy Manson Portugal

Photos courtesy of A.Manson

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