kwakatak

Given that Madagascar rosewood stoked my GAS recently (I love the reddish orange color) I was actually wondering how pauduk fares for back and sides? LMI describes it as an alternative to rosewood (being slightly cheaper) though slightly harder to work with.

I snuck away to the local Rockler and found some pauduk with a nice reddish "rainbow" and some nicely flamed maple. Overall, here's the palette. From bottom to top: - streaked ebony fingerboard - flamed maple binding strip (for fingerboard and body) - east Indian rosewood (side slat) - flamed maple 1/8"x3"x24" - pauduk 1//8"x5"x24"

I've been working on the neck a lot lately, particularly the MT joint. I also decided how to orient my bookmatched ziricote face plate for the headstock. I elected to flip the edges so that the heartwood is on the outer edges where it will be trimmed off. The "flow" of the grain seems more natural this way. Meanwhile, I've been putting a lot of thought into the fingerboard inlay design. Do far nothing definitive yet, but I'm gravitating toward a nautical compass theme that ties into the rosette. I want to incorporate the excess ziricote with some excess rosewood from the sides with a third wood to act as a color accent. I'm thinking red as a color; bloodwood or bubinga, perhaps?

...on brighter news, I've been doing little things in anticipation of bigger things. The neck blank is ready for the truss rod and I have a slotted ebony fingerboard ready to epoxy atop that. I also have the headstock ready to accept both a faceplate and once I figure out how to carve a diamond volute I will be sanding the headstock thin enough to accommodate a matching back plate. For that I have matching bookmatched sets of ziricote I bought from RC Tonewoods I will most likely trim away most of the sapwood. I also have a third set of ziricote that has a lot more sapwood. I'm going to use it for my rosette. I don't have a specific design in mind but am considering on doing a mosaic ring and inlay a ring of blue paua zip flex. I also ordered 6 strips of ebony for body binding. I'm contemplating on binding the fingerboard too but can't decide whether to do it in flamed maple of the ebony. I want to work on my fretting this time around and cover the exposed sides of the tangs. I also want to do something fancy to inlay the fingerboard that will match the rosette. Anyway, as for the big things, I have the sides thinned enough to bend and the blocks and binding are on hand for the following steps. I'm looking forward to bending the sides; it's one of the most enjoyable steps.

Since I've shifted gears and haven't had a chance to work on the body I've picked up where I left off with the neck. I had this blank glued up a couple of months ago and decided to use it. This week I glued the headstock ears on and started cleaning up the surface for the faceplate. I have the truss rod channel routed out and a dual action truss rod ready to go in as well as a preslotted 25.34" scale ebony fingerboard on hand. I haven't ordered the Abalam yet because we've put a lot of money into the house this past month as the stuff is pricey. I've also been refining the neck profile on my first build, sanding it down to bare wood and rounding out the flat segments:

OK, just in case anybody's forgotten, here's what the woods look like: I'm locked into having the D-28 style zig zag back strip:

Yup. Losing momentum is hard too. I joined the plates last year and glued up a neck blank several months ago. My honey do list is similarly hodge-podged.

I feel guilty for dragging my feet on this. Perhaps if I made use of that beautiful Carpathian top that knockwood donated maybe there'd be more traffic around here. Anyway, I was all set to do a Martin dread. I was even going to use a donated neck to do it. I bought a nice set of rosewood and glued some things together, even put a zig zag strip in like a real D-28 has but now.....I'm scratching that idea. You see, I was inspired. I hang out over at AGF where there are people with more money than me and people who have more dollars than sense sometimes but my guilty little pleasure is ogling all the boutique NGD threads. Nope, Taylors don't do it for me. Epiphone's Masterbilt line has essentially become a shadow of its former self and the rage for those "Eastman" guitars that would probably implode it you played western music on them. No, I look at the McKnights, the Yamamotos, the Kragenbrinks ... and Lord help me but I look at the Goodall and Olson threads. Those Olsons....*shudders* I gotta tell you, I used to think they were hype. $10K+ for several pieces of wood glued together? No way. Than I played one... Yes, way. The one I played belonged to another player with more experience than me and he was generous enough to let me bond with his 20 year old dreadnought with a cedar top and strung with light gauge strings - an anachronism of every belief I've ever held true from my time arguing about bridge pins here but by God that guitar SANG. I had to have one. Problem is even if I sold both my kidneys I could never afford one. Meanwhile, I continued my tinkering on my newfound hobby/obsession and late last year I FINALLY strung it up. You guys remember the pictures. I was proud of the way the neck came out - even though it's currently held together with little more than hardware you'd find in an IKEA box. I was proud of how the binding was ALMOST good enough to my eye. I was proud of how the French polish seemed to make the silking in the cedar and the ribboning in the mahogany come alive. I had a professional set it up and even though I still tinker on little cosmetic things to this day I labeled it as being "FINISHED" This about a year after I'd gotten that Carpathian from knockwood. Three years after I'd gotten a CNC'd neck with a CA glue stain in it. A year after I'd laid down some of my wife's hard earned money on wood to fill out the rest of the major organs for my next potential creation. Like Frankenstein the pieces were all mismatched. Sure, I could make a decent body from what I had but the neck didn't seem to go with it. Worse, it was a short scale neck. That complicates the geometry a bit for a noob like me but I did the early woodworking stages confident that the details would sort themselves out along the way just like last time I talked to other enthsiasts at Kit Guitar Forum and the Official Luthier's Forum and choked on the dust as others sped past me in their early builds. I felt defeated and uninspired. Still, I mulled things over and bought tools and materials here and there. Then I saw my inspiration: an Olson SJ made with east Indian rosewood not too different from the set currently sitting in my friend's workshop. It had a western red cedar top just like the one on the OLF MJ that I'd finished. It had that sexy 5 piece laminate neck with the racing stripe that makes my pulse quicken just as if I were looking at a pair of long legs in fishnet stockings. Even sexier though was the dark Brazilian rosewood binding acentuated with the customary black/white purfling strips. If this guitar ever fell in my lap you'd have to fight me to give it up - and it wasn't even strung up yet. But again, I'm poor and coveting other people's stuff ain't exactly Christian so I determined that I was instead going to try and imitate it. Just as with the first build - which was similarly inspired by an R Taylor Style 1 with WRC top and mahogany back & sides with EIR trim - I have pics of this build saved on my desktop. It will be different in that the Carpathian is much lighter and wider grained and the MJ has wider "hips" on the lower bout but if I continue to be inspired maybe - just maybe - I'll finish it. Who knows? Maybe in a year or two I'll finish it.

^ nuthin' wrong with having a Martin, least of all a D-16GT. I know I love mine.

Is this a model of guitar that she's shown an interest in or are you just hoping that she likes whatever you get her? Be careful, because that can backfire catastrophically. I did just that with a couple of jewelry purchases for my wife that have never gotten worn. OTOH when she spells out what she wants she's happy - though for me it kind of ruins the whole point of giving a gift in the first place. IMO it's best to surprise them with a gift certificate or the like. That way there's no sting of rejection and they can choose what they want. For example, on my 40th birthday my wife (who works at our bank's headquarters) gave me a checkbook. Written on it was "Neil's Guitar Fund" and inside was a deposit slip for enough money to buy a decent guitar right away, or enough for a down payment on something nicer. I still haven't spent it because I have something more expensive on my mind and don't want to settle for something that's in my price range if I already have a couple of guitars to occupy my attention.

I've been playing for about 30 years now but have the all-laminate guitar I started on as well as the all-laminate guitar that I received as a gift so I could have something to play in college. It actually wasn't until 3 years ago that I got my first all-solid wood guitar. I'd done my homework before taking the plunge though, so that guitar is in good shape and I plan to keep it for at least 20 years or however long I last. That being said, it has a polyester satin finish and my beaters are approaching the end of their lifespans and I'm hoping to move up to an all-solid wood guitar with a gloss nitro finish.

I've contemplated selling a couple guitars to get a D-35. It doesn't much matter to me whether it's an HD-35 or a regular D-35: I just think those are outstanding guitars with a subtle but unique variation of the signature Martin dread tone. There've been some deals floating by. I'm still shy of a used D-35's cost though so I haven't bitten. C70man has been waving some mean carrots in my face, too! He's the Craig's list king!

My pref is rosewood and I hope to add another. Right now I have a solid wood OM-03R with solid east-Indian rosewood back & sides and a laminated Takamine F360 (D-28 clone) with laminated rosewood back & sides (it might actually be Brazilian but I doubt it and it's moot since it's got a cork center layer.) FWIW the one I hope to add is a HD-35 (or used D-35) with solid east Indian rosewood back & sides.

The little ones have dropped change, small toys, sand, even apple juice and once a fork (an actual piece of silverware, not a kiddie fork.) Granted, it's with my beater but I watch my OM better.

Ugh. Another twice-resurrected thread.

Change his sig? Hell, he needs to change his userID; he's crossed over to being martinplayer89!

Yup. Lots of Larrivee love here. Here's my OM-03R, whose top has darkened nicely in the past year and a half: Taken shortly after delivery: And then again a couple of months ago:

Here's a Putfile album of some pics I took when I received my Larrivee OM-03R in April 2006: http://www.putfile.com/kwakatak/images/76408 Prior to that the only acoustic I owned for the longest time was a Takamine F-360, which is essentially an all-laminate clone of a Martin D-21 or D-28. This guitar was made in Japan back in Sept. 1973 and I'm its 3rd owner. I've owned it since 1992, nearly junked it in 2003 but had it repaired and put a JLD Bridge Doctor in it. Below it in the following picture is my 1998 Fender American Standard series Natural Ash Stratocaster, which was a wedding gift from my wife. http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=4908014

Uh oh, sounds like a neck angle issue. Paging Freeman!

Chet Atkins Tommy Emmanuel is a close second but I gotta defer to the man who inspired him.

Personally I would just get the guy a nice set of golf clubs. He's probably SICK of looking at guitars all day! Now if they still want to give away a guitar - say an OM-21? - , then I'll be more than happy to take it off their hands.

Hmm, do they still do that over the former Unofffical Taylor Guitar Forum too?

Is that like an "ESTEBAN" guitar?