Walker Classic Archtop

I gave this a ten because it has the perfect features for me. Kim Walker builds some of the finest flat-top and arch-top guitars in the world, all by himself, by hand, in his basement shop in the woods of Connecticut. For those of you unfamiliar with Kim's work, he was a vintage restorer for Gruhn's guitars in nashville, ran things over at guild for years, before finally going full-time on his own. He has one of his archtops in the Chinery "blue guitars" collection that was at the smithsonian. Kim is a good friend of mine, and worked on my gibson 175s and L5 for years before I got smart and had him build this guitar for me. He was such a nice guy about never bugging me to get one of his guitars even though he should have, because no gibson can even compare. Anyway, my guitar is an antique blond arch-top with ivory binding on a hand carved spruce top, with flamed maple back and sides. The neck is flame maple with walnut strips making for five peices I beleive. The fingerboard, bridge, tailpeice, pick-guard, knobs, and tuning knobs are all fine ebony, sealed and satin finished, with a shiny finished ebony headstock. The guitar is appointed very conservatively with active abolone fret dots on the neck only-nothing on the board. The headstock has walker emblem and name in pearl/abolone design. My guitar has one neck position mounted, gold covered duncan jazz pickup with one vol and tone. Kim uses many traditional techniques, but employs some very hip features to increase tone and durability, like a special light poly finish that will not deteriorate like laquer! The neck has in addition to the truss rod two graphite tension rods which make the neck very stable and true, with no dead spots. The machines are nice gold schaller minis, but with Kim's ebony buttons. The instrument is set-up with round-wound 12s, but it plays like 11s, with a softer feel and low action. Big frets. Has a really nice Ameritage hardshell case. This guitar is extremely light, very comfortable to play sitting or standing.

This is what walker guitars are all about! Tremendous projection and volume acoustically. Much more mids than my L5 ever had, with more even lows across the strings and registers. Darker and louder than the 175s, but still with very crisp highs, it is just more balanced between bottem, mid and top. I use this instrument for jazz as you would guess. Versitility does not really apply here, as this instrument is intended to create a full, clear, warm tone for lines and chords and the pick-up merely amplifies that sound. I generally run the guitar flat if the amp is good, with small tweaks of the tone knob when I need to soften the tone of the amp. I pretty much go for a tone similar to Peter Bernstein or darken it some for Jim Hall's D'aquisto tone. Unlike most archtops, feedback is not a problem because the guitar is "tuned' to just the right frequencies and has no super live spots relative to dead ones.

The nut is a special super smooth material-no slippage, and the machines are schaller, so the thing never needs tuning! Finish is hard and flawless. I had to wait an extra couple weeks for Kim to finish because he was unhappy with the first finish, so he started over to get it perfect. I do not know if Kim uses his own tempering system like Buzz Feiten, but the intonnation is unbelievable. My good friend and mentor Tom picked-up the guitar and remarked immediately on the intonnation across the entire neck with very finnicky chord voicings. The frets are tall with perfect peeks and real smooth, and the duncan is a great pick-up. I have not done anything to the guitar in 6 months of having it.

I have to use this guitar without a back-up, because i cannot afford more than one! With this type of instrument, obviously great care is taken to avoid collisions and adverse conditions. Besides that, the quality of wood and workmanship, as well as the modern features (poly finish, graphite rods, etc) make it as durable as this type of guitar can be. the hardware has been adequately covered above.

This is a no-brainer. If I want to ask anything about it, i call Kim. I often visit his shop when in town, and he always has me play various guitars of his and he just listens, making tonal observations. I have played for an hour at a time while kim just listens to the guitar. Kim will fix any problems, period. I have none whatsoever though.

I have been playing for 15 years, and professionally for the last 7 or 8. I have played Jimi Bruno's Bennedetto, as well as some Commins guitars, Gibson Custom shop, guild, the fender d'aquisto model. These all felt stiff or heavy in comparison, although the commins is a very nice instrument. Visit Kim Walker at walkerguitars.com These are not cheap instuments by any means but very reasonable in the catagory they are in. If you are in the market for an arch-top or flat-top acoustic(or mandolin even), check out Walker.