Wilson Burnham Guitars

In a previous post I mentioned that I was going to cut a sound port in the upper bout of the cedar/wenge guitar. Drilling/cutting sound ports in guitars has been popular for about the last fifteen years, it was original done with the claim that it made the guitar louder, but research has shown that it really doesn't make the guitar louder. It does give more immediate feed back of the guitar's sound to the player. I found oval templates after a search on the Internet and settled on this size. A little spray adhesive helped attach the template to the guitar's upper bout... I bravely went at the wood with a drill bit in my cordless drill... and there is the roughed-in oval. Some exterior tear/blow out had to be dealt with. After filing and sanding away the excess that didn't look like an oval, an oval appear. This hole immediately raised the tap tone of the top by one whole tone, from about F sharp-G to A flat-A, and it also reduced the side's stiffness, I

I decided to experiment with a top bracing that is in the manner of Hermann Hauser and Daniel Friedrich. Hermann Hauser was a luthier from Germany, who made a guitar that the great Andres Segovia performed and recorded on for many years; Daniel Friedrich, a luthier in Paris, now retired, is well known for his innovative bracing derived from the work of luthier, Robert Bouchet. The main reason why I am trying this experiment is that really loud  classical guitars are in great demand these days by guitarists who compete in guitar competitions and young guitarists studying at music conservatories. I find it very interesting that most of these guitarists and professional performing guitarists mic and amplify their instruments in every concert setting. Why does one need a loud guitar if you are going to plug in? Why not have a beautiful sounding guitar that will touch the hearts of listeners?  Now, to the guitar. I used western red cedar from British Columbia for the top and we