The Many Faces of Loretta

 Fraulini was my grandmother Angelina's maiden name.  There were seven sisters in the family and I have named a model after each one of them.  My great Aunt Loretta was the baby of the family and is the last surviving sister.  She is in her 90's and doing well.  She always gives me a hard time that the model that bears her name is the "cheapest", but I like to remind her that it is also the most petite and sweetest, which usually gets her to ease up on me a bit.  This year I have found myself making a surprising number of Loretta's, each very unique in their own respect.  It started me to thinking that there is quite a bit of variation that can be done with a basic shape.  I thought it would be interesting to put up pictures of the three to compare and contrast.



The Loretta is a parlor guitar, modeled after some of the great guitars made in Chicago in the early 1900s.  It's short 24" scale makes it very nice to play as the strings are slack which gives it a very comfortable feel.  The first of this batch is one I've written about before, a fairly plain guitar, with a black spruce top, mahogany back and sides.  It's only noticeable trait is the leopard skin pickguard.  The plain look really makes the pickguard pop.  I've been calling this one The Black Widow.

The second of the batch is on the fancier side.  The same pickguard shape, with an inlaid mother of pearl flower.  The spruce top has a nice multi layered mosaic purfling which I made a while back to match some old Larson brothers purfling, ebony whale tail bridge and fingerboard, diamond fingerboard inlays and rosewood back and sides.  I really like the look and sound of this guitar.  I've been playing it in open G for the past month or so and it's been fun to listen to it open up.

The final guitar of this batch is a 12 string.  This guitar is loaded with inlay, fancy purfling, beautiful tuners and some fine ribbon mahogany.  The customer wanted to be able to tune the guitar up to E, with the 24" scale this works beautifully with a light 12 string set.  The guitar sounds great and is a real joy to play.  Quite fetching to boot!

So there they are, three of the same, very different guitars built within a few months of each other and each headed off to different points on the globe.  Each one is very much one of a kind.  All a joy to build.

First batch of 2013

I recently finished the first batch of guitars for the new year.  It was a fun group, Gibson inspired more than anything.  I've really been getting into the hand rubbed sunbursts of some of the early Gibsons and got to try my hand at it again.

The most unique of the bunch was a seven string that I made for my friend Adam Kiesling.  Adam is a great musician in Minneapolis.  He mentioned to me a while back that he had been thinking about a seven string, with a low B for quite some time.  Adam has an old Galiano six string, made by Antonio Cerrito, which has a 26 1/2" scale.  He plays a lot of upright bass and is a big dude, so the long scale doesn't bother him.  Having the low B string, it made it nice to have an extra inch on the scale.  I used a .066" for the low B and the rest of the strings are a light gauge set.  The tuning is B,E,A,D,G,B,E.


I had a couple weeks to play around with the 7 string.  It was definitely fun, though I kept messing up as the extra string kept me thinking that I was somewhere where I wasn't.  With continuous playing I'm sure I wouldn't gotten used to it.  There is definitely a lot of potential for open tunings.  I look forward to hearing what Adam does with it.

 The second guitar in the batch was a Fenezia six string for another great musician, Mark Rubin of Austin, TX.  Mark plays all kinds of great music, from Honky Tonk to Klezmer, with all kinds of great musicians.  He was looking for a guitar to cover that wide variety of music.  After putting our heads together, this is what we came up with .  It's a great sounding box. Strung with medium gauge strings, it's got a lot of bark and very nice bass.  It's going to be a real gem once it's had some playing on it and has broken in.

   Last but not least was a Loretta for Todd Albright of Toledo Ohio, a straight ahead bluesman.  Todd gave me the instructions, "I just want a small guitar.  I don't want to tell you what to do, I don't want to see any pictures.  I want it to be a complete surprise when I open up the case."  I don't think there are better words you could give to a craftsperson.

The night before I made the pickguard, I had a dream about some leopard skin fabric, and that was the inspiration for the pattern of the pickguard material.  As Todd is an artistic dude, I though a black guitar would be fitting.  I followed Orville Gibson's lead, giving it a black top, but making the back, sides and neck red using a red varnish that I made up.  It turned out to be a pretty hot looking little thing.  Very fun to play with its short 24 1/4" scale.

New Logo & T-Shirts

 The great artist Robert Crumb just drew a new logo for me which has a portrait of my grandmother, Angelina Fraulini-Cambio.  I just had some100% cotton, U.S.A. made t-shirts printed with the new logo and they are available while supplies last.  $20 plus shipping.  Sizes from Small to XXL.  Any color you'd like, as long as that color is black.  Send me an email if you are interested: todd at fraulini.com

Guitars (and banjo) For Sale

 I've been going through some of my old guitars and have decided to sell off a few.  Please contact me if you're interested or if you have questions todd at fraulini.com.

Stella Concert guitar with floral bridge

1920's Stella Concert Guitar - This is the first Stella that I've seen with this type of bridge.  The bridge was likely made in Germany, along with the inlays and purfling.  I've had this guitar for a number of years.  The original bridge had been broken at the saddle and I hesitated to make a reproduction of it.  I finally got around to it, making the bridge out of ebony instead of pearwood.  It turned out great.  This guitar is in very nice shape.  I think that the bridge broke early in its life, saving it from a lot of playing wear.  There is a side crack on the bass side which has an old repair.  It could have been cleaner, but it is stable.

The top is crack free, as is the mahogany back.  Leabelly style purfling on the top and on the back.  Stella inlays on the fingerboard.  Interestingly the label reads "Stella Mandolin".  They must have run out of guitar labels that day.  The neck is mahogany and is 1 3/4" at the nut with a soft V profile.  It has a fresh neck reset with very comfortable action.  Original tuners, bridge pins and end pin.  The scale is 24 7/8" and the lower bout measures 13 1/2". Comes with a hard shell case.  A great little guitar SOLD

New and old bridges.

Bass side side crack

Stella Grand Concert

1920's Stella Grand Concert guitar- This is a well loved solid guitar with a spruce top, mahogany back and sides, Leadbelly style purfling and a nicely "alligatored" shellac finish.  There is some playing wear on the top, two very tight repaired top cracks and two very tight repaired back cracks.  Ebony replacement bridge with a compensated bone saddle.  Original tuning machines.    Fresh neck reset makes for comfortable action.  Includes a hard shell case.

1 13/16" at the nut with a soft V profile to the neck.  26 1/2" scale, 14 3/4" at the lower bout.  SOLD

 

Teens Era Thornward Guitar-Probably made by Lyon and Healy and sold through Montgomery Wards this is a great parlor guitar.  After much debate, I made the decision to replace the top and in doing so the guitar became the best of both worlds.  The varnish on the top really makes it look old.  I've shown it to quite a few people, even some experts, and no one knew that the top was not original until I told them.  The back and sides are Brazilian rosewood, the top is ladder braced to accept light gauge strings.  This guitar sounds exceptional.  Original ebony fingerboard with new frets, new ebony bridge with flattened pyramids.  There are a few repaired cracks on the back which are reinforced with linen.  Original tuning machines with ivory buttons, and original ivory end pin.  1 7/8" at the nut with a deep, yet soft V profile.  Includes a hard case SOLD

Keith Prowse & Co. English Banjo-This old girl is a cool instrument that needs some TLC.  It was made in London, probably in the 1890's.  Though there are six tuning machines, it was intended to be a five string banjo.  There is a brass tube which runs under the nut and fingerboard and pops out of the fingerboard at the fifth fret.  The string would then ride over the sixth fret (you can see it in the fingerboard photo).  This was a way of getting around the fifth string peg.  Resonator has a Brazilian rosewood veneer.  The rim is missing some inlays, as is the fingerboard.  With a little work it could get up and running.  Sold as is SOLD

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Unknown Handmade Guitar- This guitar was most certainly made by an individual rather than a shop, I would guess it is from the late 1800s.   The spruce top has a few cracks. The bridge is not original.  I think the back is a single piece of sycamore.  the sides and neck also seem to be sycamore.  There is a nice monogram painted onto the top.  The inset purfling seems to have been put in one piece at a timeThe tuning machines appear to be original.  They are in good shape and have bone knobs.  An interesting piece.  Sold as is SOLD

12 String Sets

I just received a shipment of fresh 12 string sets in light and heavy from the good folks at La Bella.  The Mari family has been making strings for a couple hundred years and they know their stuff.

The heavies are my standard sets which I've been using for a while.  They are great for getting a Leadbelly sound.  The lighter sets were put together by Frank Basile and myself for more of a McTell sound.  They have a certain ring to them that the heavier strings don't, but lack the rumble of the heavy set.  Both are intended to be tuned down to C, B or A, and the lighter sets are usually more suitable for older instrument. 

If you're interested, they are $15 a set.  Contact me at todd at fraulini.com.

Hand Rubbed Sunburst

I've been curious about sunbursts for some time, but have had a few obstacles in my way.  For starters the guitars that I normally make don't always seem suitable for sunburst.  Second, since I don't spray my finishes, I French polish, I'm not really set up to spray a sunburst.  Third, a lot of sunbursts don't really do it for me.

1924 F-4, courtesy of Spruce Tree Mus

For the most part, the bursts I like are the very early ones, especially early Gibsons, when Orville still had his hands in things and they were still "The Gibson".  After Orville left, they still did things the way that he did them and they still got great results.  I haven't seen many old Gibsons in the flesh, and have come to these conclusions from looking at photos.  That all changed one day when I walked into my local music shop, Spruce Tree Music, and saw a very beautiful 1924 Gibson F-4 mandolin with a sunburst that delicately blended from yellow to red.  I was in love. Though mandolins aren't what I build, I often look to them for inspiration and new ideas.  This was an incredible finish and I wanted to try my hand at it. 


  As I started to look into sunbursts I realized that there were a few different ways to do them.  One is to stain the wood directly, either rubbing the stain in with a rag or spraying the stain onto the wood.  Another is to tint the finish and blend the colors with a spray gun, so the color is in the finish, rather than in the wood.  I found out that the sunbursts that I really preferred were done the first way, by applying the colors directly into the wood, staining the wood itself rather than the finish.  This is the way that Gibson did their sunburst in their early days, presumably rubbing the stains into the wood with a rag, then applying varnish over the top.  As I don't spray my finishes, this seemed like the ideal way for me to proceed.


I was not aware of any guitar makers who are currently doing these types of sunbursts, but quite a few mandolin makers are doing them.  Mandolin builders seem to collaborate nicely as they try to crack the secrets of Loyd Loar's instruments.  I contacted a few mandolin makers and some great advice.  John Hamlett was the person who really seemed to have a method that would work well for me.  There's a great video of him applying a sunburst to a mandolin on Youtube.  He recommended I practice on a lot of scrap, so that's where I started.

 Once I felt like I had a grip on the technique, I decided to try it on a guitar.  Luckily at the same time I had a most excellent customer who was willing to let me build him a guitar with a sunburst.  I didn't want to have a customer's guitar be the first one, so I decided to build a practice guitar as well.  For both of them, I wanted to keep the trim relatively simple.  I use a lot of mosaic purfling with multiple layers, colors and patterns, but I don't think these details go well with a sunburst.  Things tend to get too busy and one element gets lost in the other.  I skipped all that and went with black and white straight lines, except on the rosette of one of them, when I gave a nod to Orville Gibson and bordered a maple ring with a black and white diagonal checker.






I used several old Gibson guitars and mandolins as my models and for the most part I used three colors, yellow, red, and brown.  After I had a blend of colors that I was happy with, I put down a few coats of an orange/green varnish, then French polished several coats over the top.  I was extremely thrilled with the results.  Applying the color directly to the wood highlights the figure of the wood in a way which having the color in the finish doesn't seem to do.  It gives it a depth and softness which seems to be lacking in many modern sunbursts.






Both guitars turned out wonderfully and a lot of folks have been smitten by them.  I just sent one off to the awesome customer who ordered one and the practice guitar is still looking for a home.  Let me know if you're interested.  It's an X braced 14 fret 0 sized peach, red spruce top, maple back and sides.  Here are some photos: