MIMF

John Scime wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 10:36 pm Hi Andy. I love the look of the butternut. Its beautiful. I live not far from Ottawa and have some butternut trees on my property. This gives me ideas! Thx for sharing.

John

Thank you, John.

Thank you all for the kind words. Happily (or sadly), the multi hole twin has found a new home. The other will stay with me for a while longer. If you’d like to hear an example of how it sounds in the hands of someone who can actually play, I posted this video of my friend Don Bray making it sound g...

For those who missed the beginning of the these builds, or may have forgotten, the goal for these guitars was to create a pair of very lightweight and responsive guitars. Intended primarily for finger style playing, they use what’s referred to as ‘live’ backs, a design paradigm where the guitar is b...

Here’s a video of Don Bray making my guitar sound good. Enjoy! https://youtu.be/e8rQ4rGbQR8

For those wondering how this guitar sounds, here’s a video of Don Bray making it sound wonderful - https://youtu.be/buv8bMjiILs

A few more pics...

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the second of two guitars that I recently complete. This one is a 00 sized body in quilted mahogany with a Douglas fir top. Neck is mahogany. Fretboard and bridge are thuya. Bindings and rosette are curly maple. Scale length is 24 3/4”. Initial impression is that ...

Thank you for the kind words.
My impression of black limba is that it’s quite similar to mahogany in terms of weight and workability. A bit easier to bend perhaps as it didn’t seem to have the same tendency to compress on the inside of a tighter curve

Bryan Bear wrote: ↑Thu Jul 08, 2021 9:34 am That looks great! Nice work. Makes me want to get some limba.

Thanks Bryan.

A few more pics...

I haven’t posted a completed build for quite a while so I thought I’d post a few pics of this, one of two recently completed guitars. This one is a grand auditorium sized body in black limba with a lutz spruce top. Neck is also black limba. Fretboard is ziricote bound in ebony. Bridge is also zirico...

It doesn’t matter how many you’ve made, as a builder there’s a moment when you first string up a new guitar. When you first bring it up to pitch. When the neck doesn’t snap off and the top doesn’t implode. When you strum it and hear it sing for the very first time. It just never gets old...and I LOV...

The 000 twin bodies.

The body of the second twin gets assembled.

This weekends job, assembling the body of the first of the butternut twins. Excess trimmed from front and back, braces trimmed to correct length, serial number label installed, linings notched for front & back brace ends, front and then back are glued to the sides. Some builders use their go-bar...

Bob Howell wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:31 pm curious what you did here.

Bob, I explained to him that I didn’t have the resources to mill a log into lumber but if he was able to get that done I’d be happy to use the wood to build him a guitar. Haven’t heard from him again.

You might remember last month I posted about my plan to build two similar lightweight 000 sized guitars from butternut and Engelmann spruce, one with a traditional center sound hole, the other with multiple sound holes and an asymmetric bracing layout. At the time, I said I’d post periodic updates. ...

Those of you who know me or are familiar with my work know that I like to experiment with different designs, non-traditional sound hole placement, and less frequently used tone woods. I often get asked how movement of the sound hole and changing the bracing affects the sound of a guitar. My answer i...

Thanks for that Alan.

I’d never seen curly spruce before but have come across it twice recently. Anyone have experience using it for an acoustic soundboard? Wonder if/how the inherent runout in the curl figure might affect stiffness, stability, etc. I’ve used curly redwood before without any issues but that had a much ti...