2008 Jim Redgate "Double Top" No. 292 CD/CSAR

This 2008 Jim Redgate “Double Top” No. 292 is a cedar and CSA rosewood double-top classical guitar with an armrest – a light, powerful workhorse.

Honeycomb Core, Diagonal Bracing

Much lighter than his lattice guitars and more traditional in feel, it has a honeycombed core sandwiched between two thin cedar skins, braced inside with six diagonal (not fanned) braces anchored by open, scalloped cross braces – a system that gives the sound added power and balance.

Details and Condition

The thin oil finish on the top and lacquered back and sides make it very durable; it has an armrest to protect the lower bout and Graf tuners. The label is signed and numbered 292. Apart from one cleated crack in the soundboard below the bridge on the bass side, and a string ding off the first string, it is in excellent condition with only minor signs of previous use. Jaxon Williams plays Pedro Caldeira Cabral’s “Baile dos Caretos” on it in the video above.

Jim Redgate of Adelaide

After Greg Smallman, Jim Redgate is perhaps the best-known maker of lattice-top guitars working in Australia. Born in London in 1963, he builds in Adelaide, South Australia. Like Smallman’s, his lattice guitars have thick, heavily domed backs that create an extremely rigid and solid body, so that almost all vibration from the plucked string goes to the soundboard – a thin top reinforced with a lattice of very light but durable balsa wood with carbon fiber integrated throughout.

Lattice and Double Tops

The added power of this system has been attractive to younger players, most notably Ana Vidović, who has had great success concertizing on his instruments. Jim also builds double-topped guitars, played by many professionals including Ralph Towner, Odair Assad, Slava Grigoryan and Aleksandr Tsiboulski, to name but a few.