North sea Thinline on CD

German guitarist Ali Claudi has used his North sea Thinline Florentine cutaway guitar on 7 out of 9 tunes on his new CD ' Straight forward'. For more information on Ali Claudi and his guitar see the Players / Ali Claudi section in this site.

Succesful introduction of 3-piece back

Since Daniel introduced the 3-piece back in archtop guitar making in 1995, it has steadily gained acceptance with the public. It's use originated in the fact that Daniel had great quality maple available in boards to narrow for the traditional two-piece back. Now, customers choose the three-piece back for their guitars because they like the design and the looks. The guitars made for Laurent Bouyer and Ali Claudi were both commissioned with a three piece back. For a pleasing result, the two outer pieces are bookmatched on both sides of the middle piece. Often, the middle piece originates from the same board as the two outer pieces.

From a guitar makers point of view, the three piece back has structural advantages. When the guitar reacts to changes in humidity the stress that occurs is spread over two glue joints instead of one. There are no differences in sound between a two piece back and a three piece back.

Innovation : Dual Thickness top

Daniel has designed a unique way to combat feedback on guitars with a built-in humbucker ; the Dual Thickness top. The top is carved in a way that the pickup section is left thick (about 2 cm) while the rest of the top is carved as usual. The back is carved for the best acoustic sound possible. This system works really well; there is much less feedback while the tone of the guitar is excellent thanks to the back that is carved to optimum acoustic thickness. Check out this photo which says more about this development than a hundred words can say.     

D'Armond pickup available.

Now available at the workshop is a red model 1000 D'Armond pickup. These pickups are extremely difficult to find, therefore this pickup will only be fitted to a new North sea archtop guitar ; it will not be retro-fitted to an existing guitar.

Vintage style sunburst.

Now available is a vintage style sunburst that competes with the sunbursts on Gibson instruments from the 1920s to the 1950s. This is no ordinary simple lacquer shader / sprayed type of finish ; instead, the colors are stain that is sprayed directly on the bare wood. After that, a lacquer shader is used to augment the outer tobacco brown sunburst color. The initial coloring is a sprayed stain sunburst that gets sanded back almost to the bare wood, but some of the color remains down in the figure of the wood grain. This step is repeated twice ! When followed with the lacquer shader and clear coats of lacquer, the enhanced grain really stands out. You look through the coats of clear lacquer at the wood which has been beautifully colored, not obscured by shading. The colors are yellow sunburst (which is yellow with a touch of cherry red), red brown and tobacco brown. The photo's show a back with the stain colors, and the same back when the sunburst is completed. Because of the extra work that is involved, an extra charge is added (see price list) ; but now you know why !

Photo of back with stain sunburst colours                            Finished sunburst

Click here for full size sunburst photo                    

Now available : Florentine cutaway

You have seen it on the previous pictures : the Florentine cutaway (click here for close-up picture). This specific shape was designed with German player Ali Claudi. Check out his guitar at the Information / North sea players section. Click here for a close-up of how it is made. The model is very popular (guitars made for Ali Claudi, Chris Metcalfe and under construction) in combination with a built-in humbucker and Dual Thickness top.

Tone control switch

On guitars with a pickup, an optional tone control switch gives you a little more control over the tone. It is an on/on mini toggle switch, which gives a clear unaltered signal from the pickup in one position, and a very subtle rounder tone in the other position. This is achieved by a 0,001 mf capacitator, which bleeds off some of the higher frequencies to ground. It works especially well with suspended pickups for a slightly fatter tone.

The news section is regularly updated with more news !