This 15" acoustic archtop, handmade by Canadian luthier Guillaume Rancourt features a sinker Western Red Cedar hand-carved and graduated top that comes from a tree harvested over 100 years ago in the Haida Gwaii Islands Rainforest. Western Red Cedar is now for its warmth, rich tone and immediacy of attack, but less headroom than spruce. This guitar demonstrates those characteristics beautifully. Don't think that the typically reduced headroom when compared spruce means that this guitar doesn't have ample volume. Guillaume's expertise at carving and tuning the top allows this guitar to sing with a full voice that shows remarkable balance across all registers. The top carve, developed by Guillaume, includes the bracing carved directly into the top wood with no added bracing.
The solid, carved back and solid sides are made of Honduran mahogany. The neck is made of two pieces of flamed maple with a center strip of walnut. The headstock overlay, bridge, tailpiece, and fingerboard are made of ebony. There is a K&K Big Twin Internal Piezo system installed in the guitar and routed to an endpin jack. The presence of the endpin jack would make the installation of a magnetic floating pickup quite easy as well.
The guitar plays wonderfully with all notes ringing out clearly without buzzing. The neck has a full, C-shaped carve that fills the hand comfortably. The string spacing is adequate for those who prefer playing fingerstyle, as well as being fine for playing with a pick as well.
The guitar has a sienna-burst color with Rancourt's own violin varnish finish. There are some scuff and shallow impressions in the top consistent with normal play wear, but no deep scratches or cracks. The neck is smooth with no dents or finish scratches. The frets show essentially no wear which is not surprising seeing as they are stainless steel.
Weight - 4.7 pounds
Nut width - 1.78 inches
1st fret neck depth - 0.91 inches
9th fret neck depth - 1.00 inches
Scale length - 25 inches
Lower bout width - 15.25 inches
Depth at rim - 3.0 inches
The guitar comes with the original Roadrunner ABS hardshell case which is in excellent condition.
The guitar ships for free in the United States and for reasonable rates worldwide.
