The video below is a timelapse of a luthier building an archtop guitar. It’s very time-consuming and labor-intensive, making guitars with carved tops significantly more expensive than those with laminate or pressed wood tops. However, when a luthier carves a piece of wood, they do so in a way that brings out its best acoustic qualities, making carved wood more desirable.Ī solid carved top is wood that is carved into shape by a luthier. This sounds significantly better than laminated wood. It also allows these guitars to have a better frequency production.Ī solid pressed top is a solid piece of wood that is heated and then pressed into shape by a machine. Solid wood is simply a solid piece of wood that resonates much more freely than laminate wood, typically making the guitars built with it louder. Guitars made from laminated wood don’t resonate well, so they’re quieter and have a lower production of frequencies. Neither of these options sound all that great. Laminate wood is several thin pieces of wood glued together, or ground up wood that is glued together and covered with a veneer. This will make the sections that follow easier to understand. Key Terminologyīefore we get into specific brands and models, let's start with the basic terminology below. If you’re more interested in high-end options, stay tuned for a part two coming soon here on Reverb. We'll discuss what repairs they might need and examine some key models to look out for should you decide to purchase one. To help you avoid this sort of confusion, we're going to give you the scoop on what to look for in a low-end vintage archtop. This is especially true for the lower end of the market, where a search for information often requires a crawl through vague advice on dead forum threads and tracking down jpegs of old catalogs on dormant websites. Yet for all the historical importance and modern interest, information on vintage archtop guitars isn’t as widely available as it should be. Dave Rawlings - with his '30s Epiphone Olympic - is a great example. More and more builders are returning to the template, and there’s a growing number of musicians looking for archtops to play swing and "hot jazz," along with roots and country artists who’ve adopted these instruments for their unique percussive tone.
More recently though, the acoustic archtop has experienced a resurgence.
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