Lyon & Healy Bell Hawaiian reproduction

This is the first replica ever built of a Washburn 5260, made by Lyon & Healy in 1926 (when L&H still owned the Washburn brand rights). The original design was Lyon & Healy´s last attempt in the search of higher volume for Hawaiian lap steel guitars. In 1927 John Dopyera invented the resonator guitar, taking the final step before the electric guitar merged in 1931. Maybe for this reason, maybe for the difficulties of wood supply for this size or for other circumstances that led Lyon & Healy to sell the Washburn brand to Tonk Brothers in 1928, the fact is that this Hawaiian monster was only made that year and only a batch of 12 instruments were built, surviving at least 3 today.

Our instrument has been made by Spanish-Venezuelan luthier Arturo Mieussens in Madrid. He re-designed shape a bit and included f holes instead of oval soundhole that the original had.

Finding woods for this wasnt easy task at all. We were looking for best timber available wherever it was. No place in Europe deals with koa on this size. Finding German or Val di Fiemme Spruce was also impossible. So, we contacted directly with sawmills in Hawaii and Alaska and demanded the very best for our size (bell width is 50cm and lenght 80). We finally were able to get a master grade tight grain Sitka spruce and a highly figured koa (both cut looong ago, specially the spruce). We considered building it entirely of koa, but the choice to use spruce top proved to be the right one after hearing the dominant low tones due to chamber size (and also respecting original guitars woods choice).

So guitar is entirely made of Sitka spruce for top and highly figured koa for back, sides, and even headstock, fretboard and bridge. Tuners are Gotoh 510 gold and nut and saddle are bone.

The sound is far deeper and richer than any other acoustic lap steel you can hear, with high presence of the low notes, but well balanced