-
Congrats on the new guitar. Collings builds a very impressive guitar with quality second to none. The tailpiece is a common complaint, you can easily remove it and drill it out. Make sure to use bits that are just barely larger than the original holes and best to drill a couple of times to get it to where you need to be. I find the more acoustically alive a guitar is, the more it has hidden rattles. It usually takes me a fair bit of time to sort out where they are coming from but regardless of who built it they will be present. For some reason even though Collings does probably the best fret work of any I have owned, they set the bridges on the high side. I think they use a shallow neck angle. If need be you can cut some material off the bridge top. I guarantee that action can be as low as any guitar you have owned. I keep mine about 3/64 on the treble string. Beautiful guitar! Enjoy.
-
01-06-2022 10:04 AM
-
That’s annoying. A string change should be quick and easy. I’ve contacted Collings to hear what they have to say about it.
Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
I don’t have an Eastman 810, but I do have a 580 CE with an ebony tailpiece. It has a metal claw underneath that holds the strings and so far any string change has been super easy. Sorry to hear that it isn’t on your 810 (beautiful guitars BTW).
-
I played two of the CL Jazz guitars and found them inspiring / eye-oppening. So made my own very modified take on the concept. What a great box. Everything you want and nothing you do not need. A superb design.
Mine is rougher and more personally tweaked for me, but nonetheless inspired by the amazing CL Jazz.
Now a 10 year old guitar that delivers.Last edited by Bezoeker; 01-06-2022 at 04:27 PM.
-
You built one? Wow!
-
Not so “wow” really. Originally Posted by Oscar67
I was active here 10 years ago and built it in January 2012. Retired pro wood and luthio-person.
Mine is 100% to please my own interest and get the job done. So pretty plain decor.
The two City Limits Jazz guitars I have played were beyond superb in workmanship. I mean the best of the best, arguably to the point of well beyond an instrument and into museum piece territory. The term ‘flawless’ requires a common agreement on what a flaw is, but it is hard to describe these guitars otherwise.
I was talking more about the design of this guitar and things like the Jimmy Foster Basin Street. Tiny box with remarkable acoustic complexity.
I made mine with a partially integrated X bracing. Not to actually add practical strength (just not needed on such a small top) but to give some limited transverse vibration to avoid excessive punch.
Anyway, boring blather from me. Just really wanted to note what an amazing guitar the CL Jazz is. You just need to be sanguine about the realities of big $$$ for a flawless guitar that you will play (because it sounds so good) and then bang into a music stand, drop your car keys on it, and somehow gain mystery dings.
-
Thanks for alerting me to Jimmy Foster! I’d never heard of the brand before…
Also thanks for your input. Very interesting! By integrated bracing, do you mean removing wood from a solid piece of top wood until the actual carved top and the braces remain (instead of later glueing separate braces to a carved top)? I believe that’s how PRS did (do?) their solid carved tops. I’m not an expert but that strikes me as a CNC job. Hand-carving the top and the braces out of a single piece of wood… is that even possible? But I digress.
My CL Jazz is only the 5th one ever made and by now it’s 15 years old. The too-narrow string holes in the tailpiece are a real nuisance. And I’m chasing down a minor rattle that pops up with certain notes which is proving hard to locate (I’m a laid-back, pragmatic person - until there’s a rattle in a guitar, then I become an OCD fanatic). Other than that it is heirloom-grade guitarcraft. Hard to put into words what this thing does to my playing.
-
Sorry about the tailpiece, but an easy fix well worth doing. I had to dig to find it, but here is the top I made - much as you described, but with caps on the carved braces. No CNC, incredibly knuckle-dragging low tech. Originally Posted by Oscar67
-
I can see making fully-integrated bracing for a parallel braced top.
But for X bracing, you would lose virtually all of the purpose of the braces if they were simply a ‘leftover’ from the carving.
The “idea” (such as it is) of my braces, is that the brace caps are along the part of the braces with the greatest tension, so arguably the caps are workable both as actual bracing, and as the “fast lane” for transverse vibration.
Others may very reasonably see it otherwise.
Yes Jimmy Foster did remarkable and innovative work.
-
Awesome, thanks for sharing! So many hours of work in that one picture… How did you do the back and sides, did you hollow out a solid slab or did you do the back and sides separately?
-
The top does not take as long as it might look. And notable how even a small top like this will really start to go “Bong!” As you tap it now and then while carving. Originally Posted by Oscar67
I stayed with the CL Jazz concept and made the body from a hollowed out slab of Honduran ma-hog’.
In 1978 or 79 I made a run of four chambered solid bodies made from Sapele. We called it “Philippine Mahogany” then, for some reason. The sound had a very noticeable acoustic character despite me using those gigantic Schaller bridges. So that experience, plus the incredible CL Jazz, inspired the idea to stay with a hollowed out body - this time with far better wood. Nothing wrong with Sapele of course, but I definitely prefer the Honduran mahogany.
Anyway, glad to know you have what is an incredible execution of a genuinely unique design.
Reply With Quote
The Guitar In Jazz - Jazz Guitar Radio Documentary
Today, 06:02 PM in The Players