Theo Scharpach–Blue Vienna

Theo Scharpach was born close to Vienna, Austria and moved to the Netherlands at an early age. His father was a watchmaker and Theo graduated with a diploma of Arts and later he received a diploma in restoration of antique furniture. During his time his furniture restoration, Scharpach always knew he wanted to make guitars

Scharpach has been a luthier for close to 40 years and has worked for some famous clients. These include Al di Meola, Steve Howe, Chieli Minucci, Randy Bachman, Ahmet Kanneci, Camillo Sauvalle, and Andreas Dombert.

All of his guitars are exclusively handmade and offer many tonal colors, great dynamic range with an intimacy that he feels is the true sound of the guitar. Theo started building classical guitars and specialized in custom made guitars and about 30 years ago added the Archtop jazz guitar as it attracted his attention and passion.

When Scott Chinery commissioned Scharpach to build the Blue Vienna for The Blue Guitar Collection, Theo was inspired to actualize a vision he had for about three years; to make an archtop that incorporates everything he had learned in his entire career as a luthier. Scharpach used wood as dry and old as possible on this guitar, and the result is extremely visually and audibly captivating. The bridge is blackened Brazilian rosewood that is over one hundred years old. The neck is Honduran mahogany with a shell of quarter sawn European cello wood two millimeters thick that is heated, shaped and secured to the neck with hide glue. Inspired by the art deco and art nouveau styles, the slot head tuning machines were made with machine maker David Rogers with a combination of titanium, sterling silver and black buffalo horn to provide a unique visual experience. The guitar also features a maple bound body with a spruce top with flamed maple back, sides, and neck. Ebony is used on the fingerboard, bridge, and tailpiece, and the pickguard is a clear polycarbonate with an engraved and sandblasted oceanic ornament underneath.

His work can be seen at https://scharpach.com