Kasha Braced 000

This is a 000 size guitar that I recently made for myself. I had been having a progressive problem with my left hand and was afraid that I might have to completely give up playing guitar. I found that the problem was much less severe when playing my archtop that I have set up with light guage electric strings, but I really enjoy playing acoustic guitar more than electric.

For this reason I decided to build a guitar with lighter bracing to get more volume and a fuller sound with extra light acoustic strings. I used maple for the back and sides for a very clear sound that would work well for playing jazz and blues. The soundboard is Kasha braced, which gives the guitar an archtop-like sound, but with the bass resonance of a flat top instead of the midrange-biased sound. The top is sitka spruce. The fingerboard, bridge and veneers on both front and back of the headstock are purple heart. I made an armrest out of purple heart very much like those made by John Pearse, a product I really like and recommend because they keep the bass response from being damped by the players arm. On the top of the armrest I glued ebony, purple heart and ebony veneers for a nice accent around the rounded top edge. I also put the same veneers on the bridge so that the saddle and bridge pins would have a more dramatic visual effect.

I opened up the string spacing at the bridge up to 2 1/4" for more finger room, and the nut is 1 3/4". Black binding was used throughout on the guitar for added contrast in color against the lighter woods. The black Gotoh minis also add to the overall look of the instrument. I decided to build this guitar with two side located soundholes instead of installing an adjustable port, since the effect of the adjustable port is less dramatic on smaller body guitars.

I usually play in a classical position and this soundhole placement allows the sound to reach both ears. I'm very happy with the tone and volume of the guitar, and I'm thrilled that the playability is allowing me to play guitar with virtually none of hand problems that I was experiencing before.