Background
Images from The Rawlins Gallery
The Rawlins Stradivari
Guitar, 1700
NMM 3976. Guitar, The Rawlins, by Antonio Stradivari, Cremona, 1700. The Rawlins guitar is one of two documented guitars made by the famous Italian craftsman known to survive.
The other is in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University in England. A third has surfaced in Italy and awaits authentication.
The Rawlins has five double strings, typical of the 17th century, rather than the six single strings found on modern
guitars. It is also smaller than today's instruments. Ex coll.: Louis Krasner, Boston. Rawlins Fund, 1985.
Portrait of the original Rawlins piece left and modern
version to the right.
Here are some other details for reference: The guitar
was a giant for its day! It was a 743mm scale instrument with a body length of 18.85" and depth 3.5" to 4.5".
Upper bout was 9 1/4" and lower bout 11 3/4" with a 7 1/2" waist. The neck was three piece with
"ice cream cone" heel clad in ebony and ivory.
Side View Rawlins at left; repro at right.
©National Music Museum, 1996-2008
Most recent update: February 14,
2008
The Making of a Modern Day Replica.
Background
and Build Parameters
The client requested a
loud and strong, but well balanced period guitar which followed most outward appearances of this beautiful Stradivari.
However, the number of strings (6) and the structures and internal workings of the guitar could be modern in approach and
execution. Hence, what you see here is easily recognized as fairly standard to many builders, especially steel string makers.
Decision to use the bolt on neck and truss rod was intended to make the solidest (piano backbone) neck possible and
yet remain as thin in cross section as the original instrument. The Kasha soundboard brace pattern and the use of carbon
fiber and balsa are quite a departure given this body form. A Torres fan might have worked out even better, but the
essence of the build for me is to see what exactly happens when old and new are melded into something different. Lots
of fun!
Side Bending
fixture
From a scaled up photograph,
a full size drawing of the body was created (courtesy of Kinko's). From that half profile pattern, a side
bending form was constructed for use with a silicone heat blanket. Once the form was constructed, select side panels
made from 0.085" tiger maple were bent to shape and allowed to cool. Mahogany neck and tail blocks were then
glued in place as shown.
Note, no molds are employed! The waist, upper
and lower bout dimensions and overall length, squareness and center line symmetry are maintained by the use of simple spreaders.
Some are external and some internal held in place with hot glue as needed. The rim was initially sanded to fit 15 and
28 foot concave forms for the back and top curvatures respectively. Spanish cedar ribbon linings were then glued in
place and the rim again sanded using a rotating table and the radii forms.
Book
matched .150" back panels were next glued together and braced with spruce. The back was glued in place using the
curved forms to maintain the proper arch while the glue was allowed to set up. The finished and trimmed
back and sides are shown below. Note the full size perimeter drawing used to create the original side bending form.
Lead bird shot will keep the assembly nested in place on the 15' sanding form until the soundboard can be fitted!
Using a master grade Carpathian Spruce Soundboard,
a channel was routed for the rosette. The rosette consists of white mother of pearl dots and diamonds placed in the
track. A Black Max filler was then applied and surface sanded. A traditional pear wood parchment rose was then
mounted on the back side of the top. It can be removed if needed, held in place by a small carbon fiber
spring.
The
soundboard bracing system is a modern adaptation of a Kasha braced top which includes ultra lightweight spruce/balsa cross
braces capped with a thin veneer of carbon fiber sheeting, in the manner pioneered by some Australian builders. The
sound hole location had to remain as is and the back bracing is fairly normal in modern terms.
Plan layout
for the brace placement on paper form.
Braces
glued in place but not yet voiced in this photo.
Perhaps the trickiest part of this project was making
the neck. The intricate bone ivory and ebony were undoubtedly worked with the sharp gouges and chisels of the
day. But in this project, an attempt was made to utilize some modern power tools, including table saw using a jewelers
circular saw blade for ivory slotting, a jointer and sliding compound saw for making the major pieces and a rotary microplane
drum with jig for carving the neck.
Show here is the main neck trunk composite of ebony and mahogany.
The mahogany served to hold the ebony in
position while the carving was performed.
Once
the tapers were applied, the sacrificial mahogany was sawn off, slotted for a truss rod and fitted with an ebony 640 mm scale
fingerboard. A 30 degree angle cut was done at the heel end of this blank and a vee notch cut was done at the nut end
for mounting the head plate back tilted 11 degrees. The ice cream cone heel was cut from a block similarly treated,
after the neck angle and tenon were routed. The heel and main body were then test fitted to ensure neck angle consistency.
Using a diamond saw, .040"wide strips of
camel bone ivory were cut from 8" long bone slabs and glued into the pre-cut slots in the ebony.
The headplate also received a vee notch cut by hand pull saw and was glued in place at the
nut end. This represents the last major component of the neck.
The
result is shown below in a rough sanded condition.
Note the tab cut out on the fingerboard
to accommodate the spruce soundboard tab.
Mating the soundboard to the back and sides was
next! Note the rose remained loose inside the box for this operation. The soundboard assembly was pre-registered
in this position with the spruce tab set in the fingerboard slot. The neck assembly was unbolted and removed as soon
as the glue was applied.
The
completed box assembly can be seen here after the excess spruce was trimmed off. It's finally all starting to come
together ...looking something like a guitar!
Bindings and purflings were next applied followed by the bridge and finish work.
After finishing in lacquer, fretting and set up, here's the finished instrument in a series of
photos. 
Frets 13 through 17 were masked off prior to lacquering and are 0.040" thick ebony.
The tiger maple sides came out fairly close
to the original.
Strings are D'Addario Pro Arte superior
tension.
The flourishes are held directly to the lacquered surface using 3M #77 Spray adhesive.
The tuners are Peg Heads, Flamenco type with viola grips; 9mm 1:4 planetary gear type.
So
there you have it.
The sound is pleasingly loud and well balanced, even with the lacquer fresh. The action is low and quite fast. Hopefully,
it can only get better with time!
