Stahl Style 6 Guitar

built by Carl and August Larson, Serial #81225 “Lisa”

by January Williams

Originally published in American Lutherie #112, 2012



I first saw this instrument when Denis Merrill brought it to Harp Guitar Gathering VI at Marylhurst University in Portland, Oregon, October 2008. Bob Hartman saw it then and confirmed that this is an authentic instrument built by the Larson brothers in Chicago.¹ (see A Brief History of The Larson Brothers) I liked it immediately; it has a wonderful sound, dynamic range, and clarity. It came to me again at the next NW Handmade Musical Instrument Exhibit (also at Marylhurst) in April of 2009, as Denis kindly loaned it to me for an extended time, and the idea of documenting and duplicating it bloomed into a project.²

This guitar has nicely figured Brazilian rosewood back and sides and a spruce top, all bookmatched. It has a one-piece mahogany neck, an ebony fingerboard, and an ebony bridge with a slanted saddle.³ The bracing is spruce; the shop-made triangular kerfed lining is Spanish cedar with a very thin web, and there is a thin mahogany reinforcement plate under the bridge. The guitar is decorated with classical-style multicolor wood purfling around the front and back edges, and down the center strip on the back. The rosette is typical of American steel-string instruments with three separate elements: narrow inner-and-outer veneer line motifs (B-W-B) and a separate wider central design of colored mosaic similar to the other inlay. White plastic is used for binding the front and back, the heel cap, and a wedge at the tail joint. Mother-of-pearl is used for inlays on the headstock and bridge, and for fingerboard position markers. The instrument is lightly built and rather thin — less than 3" deep at the heel. On each side there are two cloth-tape reinforcements that extend under the kerfing, and three cloth reinforcing patches along the top joint in the lower bout between the bridge plate, the tone bars, and the tail block. There is a thin spruce reinforcement glued cross grain to the mahogany tail block. The neck has a slight V shape and a slotted headstock, and is joined at the 12th fret. The body is domed or arched to an unusual extent; measured across the lower bout at its widest, about a 10' radius of curvature across the back and 12' radius across the top.