Fred's Italian Spruce and Brazilian Rosewood Concert Nylon has been braced in a lattice style. The lattice is made of Port Orford cedar, and it has been shaped taller in the middle and thinner around the edges. The lattice is overlayed with a very thin maple veneer in the direction that has upward-facing lap joints (lower left to upper right when looking at the inside). Next I'll be bracing the back and closing up the soundbox. Stay tuned...

Links Heeyu...Getcha Fresh Hot Links Heeyu!

Links make the web go 'round, so I've added a links page to my site. Obviously, if you're interested in my site, you may be interested in some of these as well. I've tried to make this page as inclusive as possible, but I've put it together just recently, so I'm sure there must be many glaring omissions. If you konw of a site I might include, or if you catch a stale link, please drop me an email. If you'd like to link directly to this page for reference, please do. Happy surfing!

Fred's Concert Nylon is Underway

This week I've begun work on Fred's Italian Alpine Spruce and Brazilian Rosewood Concert Nylon. The Italian spruce is just as light as a feather, and that Brazilian rosewood smells absolutely delicious...like chocolate! Better make sure there's no sawdust in my teeth. :)

John's 8-String is Ready for Finish

John's 8-String Guitar/Bass is ready for finish now. John has a somewhat unusual request...he doesn't want the high gloss under-glass look for the finish...he wants the guitar to look and feel like wood. What a concept! :) So this guitar will have a very thin matte finish with no pore fill whatsoever. I sure have enjoyed working with Pau Ferro on the back and sides. It's a beautiful wood with material and acoustic properties very similar to Indian rosewood. How about that enormous fingerboard? I had fun carefully shaping the neck profile with extremely shallow sloping shoulders so that it would be as easy as possible to reach across all that beautiful ebony.

I got some really uncommon and beautiful back and side sets in the shop this week. Check out the Avodire and Brazilian Kingwood sets in my Gallery of Woods in the Shop. The Brazilian Kingwood is a type of rosewood. Avodire is a strong lightweight wood from West Africa that generally similar to mahogany or acacias such as koa. I'm thinking that the Avodire would look so beautiful with cocobolo for the binding, rosette, headplates, fingerboard and bridge. Any other ideas?