Weisenborn Style Guitar

This Weissenborn style guitar has a mahogany top, back and sides, with a fingerboard and peghead veneer of rosewood. It is hollow out to the third fret, and the increased sound chamber and all mahogany body provide the resonance needed for the lap steel style of playing. The mahogany has been grainfilled and finished in a low sheen laquer. The guitar is bound with rosewood top and back, along with the peghead, which features Gotoh tuners, in this case, black.

The instrument is based on Hawaiian lap steel guitars popular at the beginning of the twentieth century, when some were made in New Zealand. These guitars are finding new popularity thanks to the playing of David Lindley and Ben Harper.
Frets are optional, but do allow the player to finger-tap the occasional note. The frets can be replaced with thin strips of maple. The scale length is 640 millimetres, or 251/8 inches. It is 55 mm (21/8 in.) deep at the second fret, and 95 mm (33/4in.) at the end block. The nut is made of bone and two pieces of fret wire have been embedded in the bone saddle to add to the tone.

Price of Weisenborn style guitar NZ$2,650 with hard case. (convert currency)

Custom Weissenborn style guitars are also available, and may include a different style of binding or rosette. The instrument illustrated below has maple binding, a spalted applewood rosette, and Tasmanian blackwood headstock veneer.