Czeiszperger
GUITARS
History
I have been passionate about making things out of wood since I was a teenager. Treehouses and furniture making as a kid led me to a 25 year career as a builder and cabinetmaker. Always interested in music, I was inspired to build my first guitar in 2009. That first guitar sparked a desire to study what makes an instrument great. I started doing repair work for local music stores and reached out to local musicians for feedback on my instruments. Much experimentation has led to the development of my own guitar bracing patterns and design style. I’m interested in learning about what came before, but not copying it.
A Czeiszperger guitar is loud and responsive with a very light touch. They have the rare combination of great balance: huge bass, mids, and trebles ringing out clear up the neck. You must play a Czeiszperger Guitar to experience the difference for yourself. The typical response from a new player is shock at the amount of sound they are hearing, and pleasure in how comfortable the instrument is to play.
Vintage Guitar Construction
I have re-built numerous basket case Martins and Gibson’s from the 1920’s up to current models. The old Martins have a great sound, are built incredibly lightly, and are very fragile. You may have heard the old adage that if an old Martin doesn’t have a belly bulge then it doesn’t have great sound. The philosophy of this light construction is that the whole instrument needs to be thin in order to vibrate and produce great sound. They have enough strength to hold string tension, but just barely. To make a guitar sound great with and traditional X brace, it needs to be on the verge of imploding. What this means today is that the majority of old Martins need a neck re-set to be playable. In today’s market the large guitar makers all offer lifetime neck re-set warranties and therefore simply cannot afford to build this lightly. When you increase the strength of a guitar to make it more stable and increase its longevity, you also kill the tone.
When you examine newer Martin, and Gibson’s, as well as others from the 1970’s onward, they are far sturdier and therefore suffer in tone when compared to the best vintage instruments. The weak points that I see with failures in old instruments, is that the thin sides allow distortion of the upper bout and a light X patterns can allow the top to bulge and distort. Once a top starts to distort it is often a slippery slope to destruction. For example, as the bridge plate starts to rotate, there is a belly behind the bridge and a depression in front. The string angle on the saddle is now less than perpendicular and encourages even greater rotation of the bridge and distortion of the top. The end result is that once it starts to rotate the damage usually accelerates as time goes on. Other X brace details includes things like scalloping the braces to loosen the top and encourage good bass response. Scalloping works great for tuning the sound but also introduces a weak spot in the structure that may affect its longevity.
It may sound like I am not a fan of traditional guitars. This could be further from the truth. I am a great lover of the sound of vintage instruments and there is much to be said for a guitar that has a history. The patina of a vintage instrument is part of the character and “soul” of an instrument. The aging of wood also changes the structure of the wood making it both stiffer and more brittle. I believe this can change the sound of a guitar for the good. That is why sometimes exact copies of old instruments do not sound the same. I am still actively involved in repair of vintage instruments for music stores and private clients and will occasionally offer them for sale on this site.
