A Deep Baritone for Lee Gilliand of Moondanse

Lee Gilliand of the Moondanse Trio had a look at the mahogany on Don Alder's Deep Baritone and wanted to know if I had more like it. Fortunately I have some sets from the very same board.

I'm often asked how my rosette is put together so I took some pictures of it unassembled, and then from the front and back, that show how it all fits.

I feel so fortunate that so many of the instruments I've built have gone into the hands of fine players, and I'm looking forward to hearing what Lee will does with the deep baritone.

Jim Saxa's 8-String Fan Fretter is Done

Today I levelled, crowned and polished the frets and made a nut and saddle for Jim's new battle axe and I'm really thrilled with the results. The intonation, action and everything came out very lovely and even with all those acres of fingerboard to cover it feels very comfortable. It took me about 10 minutes to get adjusted to the basics of playing simple C chord and D chord shapes. Now I'm going through my repertoire and getting used to dropping those low A's and E's in on the open 7th and 8th strings. I'll have this baby for about a week and a half before I'm obliged to send it to its rightful owner, so I'll be able to work on getting used to some closed voicings. The 7th and 8th strings are an octave below the 5th and 6th, so it's really not that complicated.

New Concert Nylon Studio Shots

I've posted new studio shots of a Bearclaw Sitka Spruce/Cocobolo Concert Nylon and an Engelmann Spruce/Bloodwood Concert Nylon for that model page. My customer Cliff helped me pick out this great cocobolo set with the sapwood on the sides.

Geoff's Concert Nylon is Ready for Lacquer

You can see from today's batch of pictures that I've finish sanded Geoff's Concert Nylon and gotten it all prepared for lacquer. Addam Stark used to do the finishing at Santa Cruz Guitar Company and I'm so grateful that he's right here in Santa Cruz and available to do his magic on my instruments. He finishes instruments from many very well-regarded luthiers, and his super-thin coats leave nothing to be desired compared to french polishing.

Geoff's Concert Nylon Ready for Finish Sanding

Geoff's neck has been shaped and prepared for finish sanding. A round rasp is used for ramping the slots. The custom African blackwood fingerboard gets glued down, abalone side dot markers get inlaid, a flat glueing surface is prepared for the snakewood heelcap, and the neck is sanded to the customer's preferred profile. Here are all the pictures.

Geoff's Neck Coming Along

Today I continued work on the neck of Geoff's Concert Nylon, radiusing the fingerboard, preparing the neck joint, and routing out the slotted peghead. Here are all the pictures...
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Starting on Geoff's Neck

Today I got back to work on Geoff's Carpathian/bubinga concert nylon. Geoff opted for an African blackwood fingerboard, seriously dense and hard stuff! It will be bound with snakewood, same as the body. The headstock will feature thuya burl on both front and back, to match the rosette. Here are pages of pictures from today.

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Cliff's Guitar is Done!

Yesteray I strung up Cliff's bearclaw Sitka/cocobolo Concert Nylon and I'm very happy that it's a real winner, with the strong, smooth, thick, fundamental tone that I was anticipating from this wood combination. The midrange is very full, giving this guitar such a sweet sound. I'll be taking it to a photographer for some glamour shots on Thursday so of course I'll have those permanently available on the site. I like to hang on to the guitar for a week after it's strung up so that I can continue to set it up as the string tension soaks in. Plus I get to enjoy it for a short time. :)

Bearclaw Sitka/Cocobolo Frets

The cocobolo on Cliff's guitar is perfectly quartersawn and really looks lustrous under lacquer. Today I put in the frets, tomorrow will be its birthday! It's so fun to string up a guitar for the first time. Nice bearclaw top, eh?

Buginga with Snakewood Binding

Yesterday I laid in the snakewood binding for Geoff's bubinga Concert Nylon cutaway, and today I did the first round of finish sanding. It's relatively easy to finish sand the snakewood binding because it's such hard wood. I've long admired the sumptuous wood choices that Sergei DeJonge makes for his guitars and I'm grateful that some of my customers have led me in this direction. Here are the pictures from the last two days.

Carpathian Spruce/Waterfall Bubinga Concert Nylon

This week I'm building a Concert Nylon Cutaway for Geoff in Virginia. It features a Carpathian spruce top and bubinga back and sides, and the rosette is of some really beautiful thuya burl. Here are some pictures of the guitar just before and after closing up the soundbox. Next I'll be setting in some snakewood binding.

An 8-String Fan-Fretter for Jim Saxa

Thunderclouds: Have a listen to what the The Analogues did with their Mustapick Deep Baritone. Right now I'm building Jim an 8-string fan fretted guitar. The scale lengths range from 29" on the 8th string to 25" on the 1st. I sure had fun devising this unusual asymmetrical bracing pattern on the top. My strategy was to build in plenty of longitudinal stiffness in front of the bridge to withstand the tension of eight strings, and to leave as much cross-grain and general flexibility behind the bridge as possible. Stay tuned for recordings of this guitar in Jim Saxa's capable hands. I'm thrilled to be playing some part in this great music. Jim uses the 7-string I built him on the rest of the tunes at The Analogues site.

Bearclaw Sitka/Cocobolo concert nylon

Here are a few shots of the bearclaw sitka/cocobolo concert nylon I've been working on. One of the finest classical guitars I've ever played featured this wood combination, so my ears are burning. This customer has a real thing for sapwood (the contrasting yellow wood on the sides), and I guess I can see why. I think the sides look cool. Cocobolo is a wonderful wood with a unique visual beauty, something just a little different than the standard tonewoods. Supply is not an issue which means that top grade pieces are available. Its high density and hardness make it tonally comparable to the rosewoods. I'm already looking forward to using it again.

Zebrawood!

I recently came across up some uncommonly dramatic zebrawood that I'm looking forward to building with. I love working with new woods and this one is completely new to me. The texture is a bit like myrtle, or the densest of mahogany; light relative to the rosewoods, but very stiff and hard. I'll be building guitars with this very soon, so let me know if one of them is yours. :)