A jumbo classical?

One of our clients had been asking for a large body classical guitar for years. He is 6'-4" tall and watching him and his long arms around these little guitars is just painful. It looked about like me hunkered over a ukulele.

Still, I did not know how to help him since I was convinced that he would not be happy with the sound such a large classical guitar would produce. One day while discussing our latest project, the subject of the large classical came up again. I was about to do my usual shoot it down and comfortably watch the idea crash and burn from a distance when I suddenly remembered a steel string idea that had been rattling around inside my head for years.

I wondered if a top glued inside of a laminated wooden rim would act like a loud speaker, like a cone vibrating inside a rigid structure.

The feature of the rim idea is that there is an inner surface on which to glue an inner set of sides.

The size of the sound chamber is the same size as a classical but the outside is the size of a jumbo steel string guitar.

One of the hardest parts was lining and binding the soundport.

  I was able to make a nice rounded edge around the whole guitar.

I crafted an armrest  by adding a few more laminations.

The completed body!

One more design issue: his thumb does a pretty amazing reverse curve. He requested a very thin, flat backed neck.

So I made a mock-up of the neck and sent it to him just to be sure he would like it. Note the fake fingerboard stripe on the side made with my best Sharpie.

The completed neck.