Cool & Unique Stuff About a Ken Parker Archtop
Individual Guitar Galleries
Click on the name of the guitar to open a gallery featuring that guitar
Brownie • Bubbles • Butterscotch • Crane • Egret • Fig • Grace • Green Beam • Inner Peace • Larry • Lucky • Merlin • Mira • Mrs Natural • Olive Branch • Penguin • Semeur • Spot • Stella • Verdi • Yo Yo
About the Guitars
Each guitar is different, given a unique name and built to take advantage of the materials being used.
Woods and materials used include:
Neck Core: Douglas Fir
Tailpiece, Soundhole Span, Tuner Covers: Mokume Gane, Bronze, Aluminum
Tuners: Gotoh Stealth gears embedded in the headstock
Specs:
16.3" across the lower bout on cutaway guitars
15.9" across the lower bout on non-cutaway guitars
2.5" thick at the end block, 2.25" thick at the neck block
25.5" scale
Ken on Mokume Gane:
"These parts are all made by me, that is, I developed the unique patterns in the multilayered material, by cutting and forging. No two pieces could ever be the same."
Tops: Alpine Spruce, Red Spruce, Sitka Spruce
Back & Sides, Neck Veneer: Highly Figured Koa, Big Leaf Maple, Figured Aspen, Scottish Sycamore, Blistered Poplar, Curly Mama mahogany, Bosnian curly maple, Sugar Maple from New York State, Tulip Magnolia cut in the 1860s in Kentucky, salvaged from the first RJ Reynolds tobacco drying barn, Mahogany from "The Tree”, Butternut
Fingerboard, Pickguard, Bridge and Other Bits: Ebony, Pernambuco, Snakewood