A client contacted me with a commission that includes quite a number of customizations.  She wanted a small body guitar with a short scale length, a narrow neck, and an elevated fingerboard.  I took up the challenge, and this instrument was born.

The elevated fingerboard allows easier access to the upper frets with the left hand.  The body at the neck drops down around 5/8 of an inch, which enables much easier access to frets 13 through 16.  For the frets above that, the standard repositioning of the hand is required to reach over the body.

This instrument has a shorter 640mm scale length, and the request was for a narrower neck.  The scale length was achieved, but a compromise was found for the narrow neck.  The neck is the standard 52mm width, but the string spacing was reduced down to 40mm.  The left hand feels normal, just a little tighter spacing with a little extra fingerboard along the bass string edge.

The neck is bolted to the body with a strong mortise and tenon joint.  If the action needs to be adjusted at some far off future date, then this is easy to adjust the neck joint if more adjustment is needed than just at the saddle.

The elevated fingerboard is designed using a bent top on the guitar.  The top from the soundhole down to the tail block is exactly like a traditional guitar, with the top parallel to the strings at the bridge.  The top bends just below the soundhole so that the upper bout of the guitar has the top lowered down into the body.  The benefits of this style of elevated fingerboard are:

1. The strings are parallel to the body at the bridge.  This allows the tone to be the same as a standard classical guitar without an elevated fingerboard.  Some methods tilt the entire top which can affect both tone and volume

2. This guitar fits into a standard guitar case as it has the outside dimensions of a standard guitar.

3. If you play i,m,a with the right hand on the 6th string, the top is the normal distance from the strings at the base of the rosette.  Many players rest their thumb on the top with this playing style, and it is possible with this guitar.  I've played a Humphries that had the tilted top, and the soundboard is so far below the strings that it's super confusing.

The top is an even colored, nicely stiff Western Red Cedar. The bracing pattern is a very light weight Hauser 7-fan with closure bars. The sound has the warm and inviting overtones I love so much, and it can be quite loud when played fortissimo.

The back and sides are a wonderful set of Amazon Rosewood, with the natural sapwood edge down the center of the back.  The same sapwood center decoration is repeated on the headstock.

The final request from the customer was to use the rosette pattern from the opening picture of my Rosette Tile blog posts.  This was a rosette I purchased from a Russian master, and I always thought that would be a daunting rosette to create.  I loved the look, but chickened out on the creation of one.  Challenge accepted!