Picked up an interesting Custom made Acoustic!

[adamjohnson]

Today I found a Custom made acoustic made by the late acoustic stringed instrument maker Elliott M. Smith.He lived in Jasper Arkansas

 

From the info I found on the net, Elliott was a very well known custom maker of

dulcimers, mandolins,banjos, fiddle, and on occasion was commissioned to build acoustics.

 

His brother who has also now passed away and lived in my town.

 

Supposedly he'd visit his brother regularly and he'd bring his custom made acoustic instruments with him to sell in this area.

 

Anyway this one was made in May of 2003 and has some interesting wood used to make it.

 

Woods used to make the guitar:

 

Back and Sides - Zebra wood from Africa

Top - 100+ yr. old Cypress Wood from Mississippi

Neck - Mesquite wood from Texas

Fret board - Brazilian Rosewood

Bridge - Rosewood

 

This guitar is like a is abour 2 inches taller that a Taylor GS mini.

 

The bottom of the guitar is about the same width as a GS Mini.

The top is a about 1 1/2" wider that the GS mini.

 

It does project louder than you'd expect just like a GS mini.

 

Tonally the Smith is more tonally centered and warmer, where as the GS is brighter on the top end

 

The one thing that also caught my attention, is that the neck is bolted on the newer Taylor guitars and I assume it can be shimmed to change the angle of the neck.

 

All in all this a pretty unique acoustic with some different wood being used to make it.

 

Has anyone ever heard of an acoustic being built with a Cypress wood top?

 

I've never heard of any being made using this wood for the top.

 

Anyway here's some photos:

 

Tags: cold song lyrics, closer song lyrics, black beatles song lyrics

[Freeman Keller]

Sweet little guitar and nice story.

 

Spanish cypress is commonly used for the backs and sides of flamenco guitars (the so call "blanca" guitars) but I've never seen is used for a top. Also the cypress that I'm familiar with is much lighter (hence the blanca name) than your wood - however I do know that several other varieties of wood are called cypress.

 

The important thing is how it sounds.

[DeepEnd]

Cool guitar and cool story. I dig the look of that cypress top but, as Freeman said, what matters is how it sounds. From your description I'd say pretty good.

[Tony Burns]

Sometimes we find stuff like that - their special instruments , unheard of or little know makers -thou very good .

I found a Colby Horton long body 12 fret dread some years back that totally amazed me -the research i did mentioned that he is a very good builder , but doesnt typically take orders -but builds what he wants to and then selles them in places like ebay or threw a store or two - when we run into stuff like that , we have unique makers who havent flooded the market with their wares -in other words something special.