An all-mahogany guitar!?… Really?… Why?

All-mahogany guitars have an incomparable sound. Mahogany has been used in instruments for quite some time. Normally, it is used for backs, sides, and necks on guitars. I’ve only seen five or six all-mahogany guitars in my life and four of them are ones that I’ve made right here, at Hart’s Guitars. I love the tone of mahogany and the bass-y well-roundedness of those instruments. I have three guitars I cherish and adore….. and every single one of them is an all-mahogany guitar.

All-mahogany guitars, distinctiveness, and more.

We can’t produce entry-level, budget guitars.

I really never plan to make guitars anyone can buy in a big box music store. Factories churn out instruments so easily that there are literally millions of guitars in stores right now that are: pretty, decently playable, and cheap. So, if you’re shopping for a first time guitar but somehow landed on my website, I’m sorry to say the economical cards are stacked against me. I just won’t have anything to offer you.

If you need a first-timer guitar, just Google search or go to any Guitar Center with $300 and you’ll find one to be satisfied with. Most likely that price is including a case or a gig bag. You might even go home with some change in your pocket! I cannot compete with that. Indeed I would lose myself on a fool’s errand quickly if I even try to make a budget factory guitar clone. I have none of the tooling, infrastructure, or skilled labor they have. I’m stuck with making hand-made, single-edition artisan instruments with old-fashioned hand tools.

Hart’s Guitars sells artstruments.

What sort of guitars do I make? The only kind of guitar I will ever make is the one that has no equal anywhere else in the world. My passion is making single-production, 100% unique, inimitable art-struments. This is not meant to come across as high-brow, cocky exceptionalism even though I can see how it could if read out of context from my entire blog writing content. There’s a simple explanation for why I created this term to describe Hart’s Guitars products.

When it’s not being payed, this guitar will be, I hope, of the most elegant conversational pieces hanging in your home.
John hart

My ideal client is the discriminating buyer seeking something undeniably special to add to their most cherished possessions. If you’re looking for a truly unique guitar for yourself, a special someone, or to add to your impeccable collection, then I may have something available for you. If I don’t currently have something you want but you can tell my style is right for you, I am open to doing custom builds specifically for your needs (as long as your needs don’t include replicating a factory guitar that’s already been done).

artisan classical guitars by Hart's Guitars — **a few examples of my building style**

On to the topic at hand

This particular guitar (number 015) is perhaps the pure embodiment of my building philosophy. It is the intersection of art and science. Under the hood, traditional building techniques are the strong motor and chasis of this machine. The exterior form is shaped asymmetrically using the Golden ratio as much/wherever as possible. It’s a design I’ve created myself using straight edge, compass, and french curve templates. I’m obviously a fan of Victorian voluptuous design. This guitar will cuddle with you.

all-mahogany guitar by Hart's Guitars — Classical guitar under the hood, sumptuous lap-companion nylon string beauty on the outside.

Back, top, sides: Mahogany
Binding: flaming Maple
- Fretboard: Padauk

The Sound

Not exactly a studio recording here, but it can paint a picture of the beautiful music you’ll make with this instrument.

This guitar has a clear, warm, and full tone. It’s malleable to many playing styles and thus suitable for singer-songwriters, couch to porch guitarists, jazz musicians, and classical players wanting a non-traditional classical (nylon string) guitar. Let’s dive in a little….

Volume.

The loudest guitars are steel-string dreadnoughts with spruce tops and those are the best if you’re going down to the campfire kegger hootenanny to play with 17 other pickers (who also have loud spruce-top dreadnoughts or banjos which are even louder). This guitar has been adorned with all mahogany and nylon strings, giving the instrument a completely unique tone and use case, well-suited for use by solo players/singers or with smaller numbers of more finessed playing. Of course, you can have a pickup installed later and then it could be suitable for playing loudly at your first MerleFest or Bonaroo performance.

Sustain.

This guitar has lovely, balanced sustain, meaning that the decay time for a given note or chord held is lengthy. I attribute this to the thicker than normal mahogany top plate and taller bracing underneath.

Evenness.

Sometimes instruments will produce more volume at different fret ranges on the neck or sometimes one or two open strings might produce louder volumes even when these notes are given the same force when played. This guitar has a decidedly even output all up and down the fretboard and with all open notes as well. This is because of the thick top and tall bracing that also produce the sustain mentioned above.

Balance.

Does an instrument produce more output in the bass, in the treble, the bass and treble, midrange only, or is there a broad tonal balance? Some of my favorite guitars that I’ve made have a lot of emphasis in the bass range. That’s because, personally, I do love a heavy bass tone because I like to play jazz chords while using my thumb to mimic walking notes a bass player might play. While this guitar does produce a very nice bass range, it is not stronger than the other ranges. This one has a demonstrably even distribution making it great for singing strummers and finger-pick blues and jazz players alike: appropriate lows, even mids, and crisp highs.

The Wood

I acquired this wood from Carlton McClendon’s Rare Woods and Veneers right here in Atlanta. If you’ve never been, you owe it to yourself to check them out if you have any need for top-shelf wood for your home or woodworking projects. Plan on staying a couple of hours! You will.

Kasha-style bracing? what the…..?

Underneath the soundboard, I have used a bracing style invented by Dr. Michael Kasha in the 1970s. Here is a link to this unusual approach at soundboard bracing. There are very, very few guitars around with this style of bracing because it adds a lot of extra time to the process. But, it produces an evenness in the soundboard and an overall unique quality, adding one more detail to this instrument which makes it rare. I’ve attached a “deep dive” .pdf at the end of this article for anyone wanting more info on classical guitar bracing styles.

Kasha-style bracing by Hart's Guitars — *The Guild of American Luthiers has lots of instrument plans, including this one I used for making the pieces for the Kasha bracing.*

It almost looks like a city in there

If you seek an out of the ordinary instrument that has no equal anywhere in the world, a one-off artisan guitar sculpted and refined by a single pair of hands over 9 months using only top-shelf tonewood, then please add this one to your list of things to see on your quest of curating the uncommon.
$3600

A Deep dive into classical guitar bracing styles

classicalsoundboardsbracing Download

Other items for sale

Madame de Goni Brailian Rosewood classical guitar. $9125

Art pieces for sale

When I’m not gluing together pieces of wood into a guitar, I like to paint and make things with wood. I have a few items for sale.

Sold

Paintings $130 – $420 some with and some without frames. If interested please e-mail me.

For this instrument, I decided to make a guitar in the style of an 1840s Martin. In those days, there was a lady named Madame de Goni who toured around the United States playing music on a guitar that would have been the size and shape of the instrument I present very proudly to the world today. Thus, I’ve developed a tendency to refer to it as the DeGoni guitar (or the Madame de Goni guitar).

Soundboard – Western red cedar drying for over 50 years.
Fretboard – Brazilian rosewood drying for over 100 years..
Sides – Brazilian rosewood from the same stock.
Back – Brazilian rosewood ” ” ” “.
Binding – flaming maple
Rosette – traditional Spanish rosette encircled by numerous rings of various species.

Even if you’re not a luthier or guitar player, this coffee table book is a page-turner for anyone who appreciates nice things.

The vision of this guitar began forming back in the spring of this year (2021). I purchased a beautiful book, Inventing the American Guitar, to add to my ever-growing library of luthier and woodworking related reference materials. I’m particularly fond of the craftsmanship of earlier times and this book has a plethora of images demonstrating instruments that are nothing less than works of art and what some might justifiably call lutherie porn. Nearly two-thirds of the way into the chronological display of how the modern guitar evolved from the romantic era Spanish-American guitar, there is an entire chapter dedicated to the story of Madame DeGoni. I fell in love immediately and months later I’m happy to present the guitar I might have made for the touring charmer if I had be asked to do so.

A status update sort of pic I took back in September is the best shot I have because the light in the room was perfect.

Flaming maple/Brazilian rosewood outer rings with small blocks of canary wood, chakte viga and maple.

C.F. Martin made a special guitar for Madame De Goni and it was not the typical Spanish fan-bracing soundboard but a prototype for what would turn into the famous (and some say revolutionary) x-bracing soundboard reinforcement which was codified by the 1850s and is used to this very day!

María Delores Asturias y Navarres de Goni (1813-1892)

The famed poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow attended a house concert in Boston, Massachusettes in 1842. In two different letters he wrote days later it is obvious that the lady from Spain charmed his auditory as well as his visual tickle spots:

There is a sweet Spanish woman here, playing the guitar, La Señora de Gony,-delicious.” –La Señora de Gony, whose guitar delights me more, perhaps because it awakens sweet remembrances of early youth and Spain;-perhaps because a woman plays it, and the devil is in it.

Which one would Madame de Goni pick if she had been given the choice? Discuss.

I really made the best attempt I could to make this guitar feel and look like it was snatched up during a time travel drive by of the 1840s. I went so far as to give the finish the appearance of an antique guitar that had been retouched and refinished through the years. I really had a lot of fun with this one.

This De Goni tribute is made by simply the best wood possible. I’m pretty sure I could not be any more fortunate than I currently am with the wood I have at my disposal. For the soundboard, classical guitars are overwhelmingly made using either spruce or western red cedar. In the spring of this year, I acquired a collection of wood that has me set up with the finest tonewood which I can use to make guitars for the rest of my life, most likely. A local luthier named Wade Lowe passed away earlier in the year and I was indeed a fortunate soul, one of the few chosen to view his immaculate collection of wood his family was selling that he built for himself as a luthier and woodworker.

All of those darker pieces are Brazilian rosewood, an endangered species of wood cherished for the life it brings to stringed musical instruments.

for a little more on the topic: https://sheshreds.com/martin-guitars/

For sale now at Village Music in downtown Avondale Estates in Decatur, Georgia.
Village Music

If you seek an out of the ordinary instrument that has no equal anywhere in the world, a one-off artisan guitar sculpted and refined by a single pair of hands over 6 months using top-shelf tonewood, then please add this one to your list of things to see on your quest of curating the uncommon.
$9125