Lute Guitar

The lute-guitar is an attractive and lightweight instrument of a similar size and scale to a standard classical guitar but with a body like a lute. In keeping with the character of a lute, the bowl-shaped body is achieved by edge-gluing together staves of uniformly thin hardwoods bent to a specific shape with no heavy internal bracing to retain its form.
The bowl is made of two alternating woods: Lacewood (Platanus orientalus) is a light-colored hardwood that has color similar to maple and has distinctive rays that provide what is known as a “beeswing” pattern. A member of the sycamore family, its timbre characteristics are similar to maple generally providing a brighter tone than rosewood. The dark-colored wood is sheesham rosewood (Dalbergia sissoo) that affords a warmer mellower tone. The combination of the two offers a blended timbre as well as a desirable look.
European spruce is used for the soundboard and, in keeping with the design of 16th-Century lutes, its soundhole is a carved rosette in an attractive geometric pattern which is cut into the soundboard itself and is not inlaid of different material.
The rosewood neck has a shape is similar to a classical guitar with a 51mm (2 inch) wide nut of ebony. The top of the peg box has a woman’s head carved on the top. Using standard nylon classical guitar strings, it is tuned like a guitar in e, b, G, D, A, E tuning. If it is to be used for lute music, the 3rd string may be tuned a semi-tone down to F# to enable lute fingering.
The overall length is 40 ½” and the scale length is 25 3/8″, similar to a normal guitar. This instrument has a satin lacquer finish.

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