Best books on Archtops / Best books on nylon string

[Matthew Springer]

Gang,
I'm thinking about taking the guitar building plunge. I've done a ton of woodwork and a lot of repair/setup work on electrics and acoustics, so I'm not a complete noob. That said, I'm a complete noob.

What I want to build is a nylon string archtop, likely using the "double top" nomex method since it's looking like no one actually builds these for sale at any price. Or at least not at a price that would not pay for all the tooling needed twice over. So the good news is I won't likely need to hand carve the arch curve except on the mold. I have access to a CNC router (but also a ton of hand tools).

What I don't have is the specific skill set or the experience. So I'm curious if folks can recommend some good archtop or nylon building books beyond the Benedetto book. I also have the Jonathan Natelson and William Cumpiano book and a couple more.

What I also have is a ton of patience. I usually go into these project assuming I'll mess up, so I'm OK learning on the first one.

[Chris Fournier]

Those two books are pretty good for your intended project, there are plenty of vintage and very limited production books out there that offer a bit more in some details but they can be hard to track down and extremely expensive. I think that you are ready to go with what you've got! Okay, maybe try to pick up Irving Sloan's nylon string book...

I would suggest a solid body build as a sort of warm up to this project, your first effort will likely be a great guitar and it will help you envision aspects of your acoustic build that are more involved. I enjoy building both as they each offer their own unique rewards.

[Stan Calow]

Matthew, if you haven't already checked it out, the Musical Instrument Makers Forum mimf.com is the place to go for help on this.

Absolutely no experience making them, but as I understand guitars, the art of arch tops, is less about the appearance and all about carving the top exactly right to produce the tone. Maybe violin books would help.

[george wilson]

I really doubt that nylon strings and the arch top configuration will go together well. Arch tops need powerful vibrations to make them sound good.

[Scott DelPorte]

I have never seen an archtop build using the nomex sandwich technique. I have seen guys put a slight dome shape on one of those tops, but never make a real archtop. For a sandwich top, I would think you would need to make molds and do some kind of vacuum clamping to pull the assembly into it when doing the glue up. You are a brave man to attempt that for your first build. Bob Benedetto's book is a great reference, but it is geared toward carved top and back plates rather than sandwich construction, and steel strings. The thicknesses and arch heights he uses wouldn't really apply to the different construction. The one guy I know who make a few nylon string archtops initially made the arches too high (he was used to making steel string jazz archtops), which made the top too stiff and it ended up with a tinny sound. His later builds lowered the arch and sounded better.

I also haven't seen much in the way of books on nomex/sandwich construction technique, but as Stan mentioned the mimf is a good place to start. There is a guy over there named David Schramm who offers an online course on classical guitar building. You can find him with google. He also makes classicals using the sandwich technique (not archtops), and is really friendly with advise and might be able to help.

[george wilson]

The old Sloan book on building classical guitars is pretty useful. He visited me once in Williamsburg. He was looking for a shop doing a lot of guitar repair,which we were NOT. I told him to try Martin. We were making 18th. C. instruments,and hardly doing any repair of modern guitars.

I liked the type of molds he used,and some of his methods. Lots of pictures.