Robinson Guitars are uniquely designed with the utmost in player experience at their foundation, and with an artistic style that is equally understated and tastefully appointed. At first glance, Bob Robinson’s guitars are immediately intriguing, while a closer look brings into sharp focus the design and assembly elements that are uniquely modern but remain well rooted in guitarbuilding tradition.

  Robert Robinson guitars feature an offset cut-away and a unique neck joint that allows the player to comfortably access all the strings across the fretboard for the full length of the neck. The neck joint is borrowed from the high-end furniture world, where Robinson is head-designer of a successful medium-scale boutique furniture manufacturer in Chicago.

All Robinson flat top models feature a solid, unbraced, carved back which is graduated in thickness. This design allows the back diaphragm to vibrate freely, similar to an archtop guitar or a speaker cone. The responsiveness of the back is immediately noticeable when you play one of his instruments.

The body of the Robinson Model 16 is built of carved highly figured maple, with a uniquely braced red spruce top. The body measures 16” across, and has sides that taper from 3-5/16 to 3-13/16”. With its tight waist and slim sides, the guitar fits smaller than it measures. The bindings, bridge, and fretboard are rosewood, and the oval soundhole features a beautifully proportioned walnut, maple, and ebony rosette. The body is finished in high gloss lacquer.

The figured maple neck features a traditional ‘Bird Beak’ headstock joint, akin to the one that graced all Martin guitars built before about 1917. Robinson’s headstock design is sleek, modern, and balanced, and features a hand-hammered recessed truss rod access cover, zero fret/bone nut set-up, Arts & Crafts inspired inlay, and gold Waverly tuners with snakehead buttons. The neck is finished with a rubbed gunstock oil finish.

Below the surface, the intricate and unique design continues; but unlike many luthier-built guitars that are heavily braced and over-engineered, Robinson’s Model 16 bracing is light and well thought out. The guitar is designed to breath easily and respond well to any touch. The guitar’s build features solid linings and a half-X lay-out, multiple fan-style tiny braces, and a few very small finger braces per side. The bridge plate is maple, and quite small and thin.

The neck carve has a rounded D feel, and a near-uniform neck depth up the barrel. 1st fret neck depth measures .870”, 12th fret depth tapers to .930”. The nut measure 1-3/4”, string spread at the saddle is 2-1/4”, and the scale is 25.4”. The fingerboard is fretted with slightly larger .095” x .047” fretwire and is compound radiused, from 9” to 12”. K+K pickup.

This guitar’s tone is entirely unique. With its lightly built big flat top there is a warmth and depth that underlies its voice quite uniformly along the fretboard. The carved maple back adds an archtop’s quickness and forward midrange, and the fan bracing brings a Selmer’s compression, touch sensitivity and quick note decay into the equation. It’s well suited to fingerstyle or flatpicking, and does a great Django-playing-a Somogyi impersonation.

This guitar is offered here as a guitar-show demo and shows the very lightest of handling wear to its finish. Its pricing has been discounted as such, but its full warranty remains in place.

A custom Hoffee carbon fibre case in included.