Matthew Woodall Archtop Guitar, 1999

Here’s an interesting piece – a Matthew Woodall Archtop guitar with a 17 inch body, built during 1999 at his shop in Chicago, Illinois. Unfortunately little is known to us about this builder or his work.

This Matthew Woodall Archtop uses a fairly traditional cutaway design, with a 17 inch wide body. The top is solid carved Spruce with bound F-holes, and the back is carved, bookmatched Spalted Maple. The sides and neck are also Maple and the body is bound with a faux-tortoise layer. The fingerboard, bridge and tailpiece are Ebony. The pickguard is burled Walnut, and there’s a detail on the end of the cutaway, a covering also of burled Walnut. Position markers are Mother of Pearl blocks, and the headstock features a Mother of Pearl and Abalone flowerpot and M W logo, reflected in a ‘Woodall’ inlay on the tailpiece. The truss rod cover is also Abalone. A Bartolini pickup is neck mounted, with the controls on the pickguard. The output jack is at the tail block.

This guitar plays well, and currently has an electric-style setup at 4 to 4.5/64ths inch. I asked Douglas Harrison, an excellent Archtop builder and player to test drive it, and he describes it as warm and open, not choked, with a good balance.

The original TKL hard shell case is included.