This triple-0 guitar has an American spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides. The binding is flamed maple, and the fingerboard and pyramid bridge are ebony. It is finished with a thin coat of oil varnish to protect the wood while not preventing it from looking and sounding great.
Like all Smith & Fison guitars, the top has been deflection tested to ensure that it is as thin as possible for this particular piece of spruce. This slow and delicate approach to finding the top thickness is a key ingredient in why this guitar is loud and responsive.
The slotted peg head, vintage-style tuners, and neck volute are all nods to the fine American guitars of the 1930s that I love so much. In truth, the volute – that small pyramid dart at the base of the headstock – is purely decorative. Earlier luthiers sometimes built the neck shaft and headstock separately and then joined them with a highly complicated bird’s beak joint that left that volute there for structural reasons.
This beautiful guitar was completed in 2015 and sold to a customer in the United States.