Project – Concept Amaranthus tricolor
When I was contacted about ordering the instrument, it became clear during the discussion that something similar was already being worked on. This is a so-called free project – some sketches, outlines, contours of a new instrument. The customer approved the presented sketches and did not interfere with the process. On his part, the only request was for the guitar to be inlayed with an amaranth flower design. In fact, this formed the basis for the design and name of the instrument.
It seems that there was more fuss with the flower itself than with the guitar as a whole. It was necessary to somehow adapt the photo to the draft version and pick the materials. But over time, everything came together. In the end, I came up with a sketch and did a flower from three types of mother-of-pearl.
The guitar top wasn’t planned to be easy either – local gluing and different types of wood were used in the process. The contour lines and emphasizing chamfers were made of amaranth. Thus, a full-fledged image of Amaranthus tricolor was formed.
Almost all technical decisions were made directly in the manufacturing process. Initially, I planned to make a headless instrument. Well, kind of ? I wanted to leave the head but only for a decorative purpose. Special “locks” were developed for fastening the strings. But as the process went from the idea into reality, it did not come to be (for the technical reasons). I was forced to use the classic mechanism – the pegs. The initial idea is being transferred to the next project.
When it came to assembling, the idea was not to put standard control knobs, but to cut them out of the scraps of the top. Somehow it would be wrong to put such banal standard knobs on an instrument such as this — my conscience couldn’t let me do it ? So that’s how wooden “hats” with mother-of-pearl eyes were born.
Of course, how it was done and the result, can be seen in the photo reports and on the video.
