Finished the Body of Victor's 7-String

Victor's European spruce/Indian rosewood 7-string is looking very nice. I especially love Indian rosewood. The fact that it's plentiful means that it's possible to acquire absolutely flawless straightgrained and quartersawn wood...perfect for guitar making. It produces a powerful sound with a deep bass resonance that really cannot be surpassed. I've finished assembling the body, installing the binding, and doing a preliminary round of finish sanding. The rosette and binding on this guitar are curly koa, an especially beautiful wood from Hawaii. I've taken a few closeups to show some of the details of the koa binding and the blue purfling lines. I've gotten a good start on the multi-scale neck as well. I'll post more on that soon. Stay tuned! :)

Congratulations to Don Alder!

Congratulations to my friend and customer Don Alder for having won First Prize in the 2007 Fingerstyle Guitar Championships at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. Bravo, Don! :)

Bracing and assembling Victor's 7-String

As you can see, I've finished bracing the soundboard of Victor's 7-string guitar and assembled to the completed rim. The x-bracing is asymmetrical because it arranged around an asymmetrical bridge plate, owing to the multiscale design. The taper of the x-brace on the bass side leaves that brace a bit thinner than on the treble side. I've left the soundboard and bracing just a little bit stiff on this guitar pre-assembly. After assembly I always thin the perimeter of the lower bout to provide extra flexibility there. On this guitar I'm going to take this idea just a little further, thinning the perimeter just a tiny bit more than what I have been doing. There'll be a little extra stiffnes around the bridge and a little extra flexibility around the perimeter of the soundboard.

Victor's 7-String is Under Way!

I've begun work on another special instrument! Once again I have the honor of making an instrument for another accomplished musician. Listen to the recordings at Victor Tsaran's website. His compositions are lovely, and all you need are ears and a heart to appreciate the expressiveness and fine musicianship there. Victor's guitar will be made of European spruce, Indian rosewood, and koa trim. So far I've bent the sides, jointed the top, laid in the rosette, and sanded the top to its pre-assembly thickness of .105". I've jointed the back and sanded it to a thickness of .100". The thickness of the various components doesn't follow a rigid formula. I do it by feel. I can tell from experience when these pieces have the amount of flexibility I'm looking for. Since this will be a 7-string, it will have a fairly steeply raked fan-fretted design so that the low A can be supported by a long scale length. Since the bridge will be slanted, the bracing will also be customized in a way similar to what I did with the bracing on the 7-string I built recently for Rune Mandelid.