The Weissenborn of Ivo Meijer

Dutch guitarist Ivo Meijer fell in love with my  2009 made Weissenborn Style 1 with a spruce top and wide string spacing at the bridge. As he is very pleased with the instrument I digged up some construction pictures – for your pleasure!

This was my last sitka spruce top Weissenborn I made, as many people started to order my more populair style 4 Weissenborn. The Sitka spruce adds more brightness and sharpness to the sound while still keeping that typical full Weissenborn sound. The instrument has my square bridge design and bindings around the back and top. The back and sides are made from a nice curly bubinga set.

A thickness sander is used to thin the wood to the right thickness. I tap and flex the wood to keep a feeling on the strength and tone.

Here the back is clamped in a “Go-bar” system. The sticks apply presure and the wood is pressed in a dome shaped template.

A side is bended and prepared for glueing in a template. The Weissenborn needs extra large pieces of wood, sometimes it is very hard to get good quality wood in Weissenborn size.

The head is made seperate and glued in the box. The rest of the “neck” is hollow and part of the typical sounding Weissenborn.

A bit difficult to see, but the head is glued between the top and the sides.

Some overview of the construction. I build all acoustic guitars in the Spanish way – upside down in a solera (working board). On the right you can see the spruce neck reinforcement blocks.

While the head and endblock are glued, the rest of the side is put on the top without glue. I put all small mahogany blocks in by hand with glue and let it dry overnight. Then the side is glued to the body. Later, a binding will be glued around the top to make a second glue joint from the outside. In that case the binding is not only a decoration but also has a structural reason.

Here the top linings are glued to support the back. These are not seperate blocks.

The Weissenborn before applying natural PU laquer. Many layers are put on and many layers are sand of, to result in a thin polished film to not disturb the fibration in the top.