Holow-body electric guitar, 2002 - Andre Instruments no 12
Dimensions: 101 x 37.5 x 8.5 cm
Scale length:648mm
Neck width @ nut 44mm
String spacing @ bridge 52mm
Body length total : 53.15 cm
Soundboard: Sugar maple, vacuum dried
Back&sides: Honduran mahogany
Neck: Honduran mahogany, and steel adjustable truss-rod
Fretboard: Gabon ebony, with brass dot markers and bleached moose horn inlay
Headstock: Gabon ebony, Honduran mahogany, with mother-of-pearl -Z- inlay
Bridge: Bleached moose horn
Tailpiece: Gabon ebony, with steel wire
Tuning machines: Schaller
Nut and Saddle: bleached cow bone
Finish: Tung oil and copal varnish
Pickups: K&K pure mini, Seymour Duncan Stack Strat with sugar maple/ebony cover
Strings: D'addario EXL110, nickel and steel
Collection Teti, New Hampshire, USA
Zyra is probably the guitar that thought me the most early-on about guitar design, or about design in general. It was commissioned by a Montreal guitarist and collector, who clearly stated that -He wanted something that he had never seen.-
I had the asymmetric shape and oval theme pretty well worked-out, but I had not imagined what was coming.
While working for two full weeks at drawing, I just couldn't -find- how the outline could meet at the -horn- part. I mean, guitar -horn- as we call them usually. Out of nowhere, or out of luck, I found my plastic -oval- template just at the right spot on the paper, merging with part of the erased lines that where there, and -boom-. It all came into place, as something not prior intended.
This horn (literally) theme would now follow me throughout my practice, and my current projects are influenced still by the making of Zyra.
Aside from the Kouaihollow-body electric guitar, two major projects are in the works in the -Zyra- mode of expression.
For my 25th year coming as a guitar maker (in 2023) I was planning to make a series of four Zyra...I have all the dedicated woods - specific one-piece tops and back materials, etc. I have worked-out a theme, and re-worked my former template a little bit bigger....Only time will tell if -25th- is the year they will be made!
Original Zyra masonite template (lower-left), and recent, slightly larger -Zyra 2- wooden template (upper right).
The new outline, while being very close to the original, features a little wider body, a more open cutaway access, and a tighter curve around the lap for additional ergonomics. It is designed for more -air- inside the box, and can be built more like a true archtop guitar.
