These two guitars are made for the brilliant Norwegian artist Jarle Bernhoft. One of the guitars, the Basstard, we have specially built for having two bass strings instead of the regular E and A strings. The neck is made a bit wider to give room for the thicker strings, and its wider spacing. We have also split the bridge sadle to be able to set the intonation on the bass strings. The other guitar is more like a guitar that we would normally make, except that he also wanted to use it as a drum.. To accomodate such a request without compromising the sound is quite a challenge. The most common soloution would be to laminate three layers of wood with one layer of thin veneer glued to either side of a thicker core. This creates a stiff and not very resonant back. What we did was to make the back as we normally would, only a bit thinner. Then we glued two layers of 0,6 mm veneer on the inside of the back only. This significantly reduces the risk of cracking, but at the same time preserves most of the flexibility and resonance of the back. Here you can see Bernhoft using the Basstard to rock the house on the Conan O`Brien show..
SPECS
Model: NWS Acoustic
Top: Røyrvik Spruce
Back and sides: Flamed Birch, Laminated back on the "regular" guitar
Body Features: Cream binding
Bridge: Walnut with bone sadle
Neck Wood: Flamed Birch with a walnut center stripe