Samhain is the second model in my Celtic Festival Series, and is a Grand Concert sized guitar with either 13 or 14 frets clear of the body. Samhain marks one of the two great doorways of the Celtic year, for the Celts divided the year into two seasons: the light and the dark, at Bealtine on May 1st and Samhain on November 1st. Some believe that Samhain was the more important festival, marking the beginning of a whole new cycle, just as the Celtic day began at night. My owm personal guitar was made in Cedar/European maple reflecting the dark/light balance. I have also made one in European spruce/Cuban mahogany. It is a lovely intimate guitar for fingerstyle playing and as with all of my instruments has great projection and sustain.
The first two pictures are of my cedar/maple 14 fret clear Samhain. The third picture is of the 13 fret body join Samhain - this one is "Samhain Cheltenham" made for the September 2007 Acoustic Guitar Show in Cheltenham.
You can hear a recording of my cedar/maple Samhain here.
Specification:
Scale length:
650mm 14 fret or 630mm 13 fret
Top:
European spruce
Back/sides:
Indian Rosewood
Lower Bout width:
380mm
Upper Bout width:
280mm
Waist Width:
222mm
Overall length:
1,003mm
Max. Rim depth:
110mm
Neck:
Mahogany bolt on with 2 way adjustable truss-rod and twin carbon fibre rods
Tuners:
Gotoh, gold
Nut/width:
Bone, 46mm
Saddle/string spacing:
Split bone, 55mm
Bridge:
Pinless or slotted pinned, Macassar ebony
Fingerboard:
Ebony bound with ebony, bwb purfling, raduised, 2.5mm MoP side dot markers
Frets:
19 heavy Japanese
Binding:
Maple, bwb purfling. De Faoite Standard Rosette. End graft matching binding
Finish:
Top, back and sides are either hand rubbed pre-catalysed lacquer or French Polished and toped with thin coats of Tru-oil. Tru-oil neck.
