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beautiful !!

I like your furniture and decor as well.

Any sound samples ?

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

Hanns That is a classic in every way. It look like a brand new 100 year old parlor. Love to hear a sound clip . What about one of the Braz/Adi as well ?

Regards
Craig.

Stunning for sure.

Would you tell us what the stain is or how you got the color to be what it is?
Chuck

Definitely a great piece!

Great finish work..!

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

That's a sweet lookin little git-tar there Haans! And I always enjoy how you use the little extras in the scene of the pics. Even your hasty shots are well done.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Haans,

I was never a fan of oak on a guitar......until NOW!

Really nice work. I'll bet she sounds wonderful as well.

Now that is a fun looking little guitar. Perfect size to sit on the couch and noodle with. The purfling you've been making looks real good.

Tim

Wow, just beautiful in every way Haans. Just love it. How do you emboss/burn your logo in the back strip? I'd love to do that, but haven't seen the tool available.

Thanks,

Chris.

Been wanting to get one of those too ... but I need to finish a guitar first ! argh... I can't justify it yet...

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=701&filter=branding%20iron

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

Thanks Jon, exactly what I was wanting. Ordering one.

Chris.

Well, hey, thanks a lot guys!
The back and sides are dyed with Trans-tint. I mask off the wood next to the backstrip, cover with 2-3 coats of lacquer, then dye. After that I filled the grain with McFadden's RW filler 4 times. Then I used several utility blades and scraped the binding and center strip. After that it's ready for clear lacquer.
I got the logo burner from some place in California...about $200.

Well, Fillipo, I'm not much for natural guitar backs in oak or mahogany myself. But having to dye the wood is not an excuse for not using it for it's sound making qualities. Combined with red spruce this guitar has VERY different tonal qualities from RW or Mahogany and it's just perfect for blues.
I took it and a BRW 12 down to the Podium yesterday and while they hung the 12 on the wall, they wanted to keep this one too and I could hardly pry it out of their hands...
, she is quite "girlish" isn't she! I love these old Larson design bodies.

Haans,

I am glad you gave Oak a try. It sure makes one heck of a small body guitar... My impression is that Oak is very resonant but it doesn't have the chimey-ness of Rosewood... That is the best description I can come up with at this point.

On a small body, that can be a good thing -- as sometimes the Chimeyness + small body = way too zingy....

I believe you are totally right about the "Old Delta Blues" sound -- My Red Oak Ditson 11 has exactly that sound when played with a glass bottle slide in G tuning... It honestly makes you feel like you need a cigarette hanging out of your mouth, a cheap bottle of whiskey, and an old guy playing a twangey sounding piano next to you...

I honestly love the finish on yours -- I agree that the dark finish makes the rays "Pop" so much more than a plain Blonde finish...

My next Oak guitar is going to get a finish more like yours.

What is the body pattern you used? It looks like an old turn-of-the-century European pattern with the narrow waist and smaller upper bout.

Thanks

John

John, the body is a modified old Larson, probably very early. Yea, not much complexity to it, very strong fundamental. Makes a very clear sounding treble (from what I've learned from mandolins, a very complex treble makes folks think it's quieter) and with a well broken in set of strings, the bass goes "thud". Exactly what you want for blues. Seems to be good for any kind of fingerpicking with a new set of strings (plenty of sustain), but (and I could be wrong but I don't think so), I don't think white oak would make a good classical guitar.
When I had it at the Podium, Jeff the owner showed it to the first guy that walked in and asked "Would you buy a guitar with a back like this?" The guy played a few notes on it and said "He!! ya, what kind of wood is it?"
Todd, the dye is a mix of Trans-Tint brown and red mahogany.

I'm still willing to try it. I am optimistic based upon my recent experiences using Ash for classical guitars. I think that there is a lot more going on with your guitar, to give you the results that you describe, than just the use of White Oak as the body wood.

What that is, I don't know!

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
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Douglas, anything is worth a try, but my thought would be not to use red spruce, but rather German or Swiss. I have to admit that red spruce does contribute the majority of the fundamentalness of the tone, but seems to me that the oak has a particular "thud" to it that also contributes to the overall sound. I suppose it could be used to "tone down" the complexity of German.
Good luck, and let us know what the result is!

Great looking ( and I'm sure sounding) Git, Haans.

After building my first (working on my second ) ladder braced 12 string ,I am becoming a real fan of this style.

I have some amazing curly quartered white oak I am planning on using for a six string ladder braced guitar.

I would love to find the pattern of the parlor you are building.

Regards,
Brad

I might also hesitate to do a classical out of Oak... especially if you are after the "Modern" Classical sort of sound -- I think Al Carruth posted some opinions about his experiments with it.. and I might agree...

The place I see Oak not really doing so well in a Classical is the search for bright, crisp, ringing trebles. On my oak body steelstring -- it certainly has good trebles, and it is very nicely balanced... -- but the challenge on a small body Steel string is to make it sound Balanced -- It is usually really easy to build them to sound crazy bright and tinny.... This one was the opposite for me.... It took me a some work to get it from sounding "Thumpy" to sounding well balanced (This was probably for a large number of reasons, not just the Oak..)...

I think my impression is that you may have to work all that much harder to bring out bright, clear trebles with those big fat nylon strings on Oak...

But, then again -- if you read the Player forums... Everyone knows Oak guitar sound terrible.. Why would anyone ever want to even build one?

Thanks

John

I have been bulding furniture for 40 years now & have been bored with oak most of that time, but, you have piqued my interest with what you have done. For me, it is the entire package, including the top, purfling, & bindings. When I think about winning the lottery these days, I think about what furniture & guitars I would buy and I would love to have that one. Thanks for sharing
Mike McNerney
ps. As far as furniture it would be something by Stephen Harris, Wendall Castle, & John Makepeace

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Mike McNerney

I've had a lot of requests for a tracing of the body shape, but I'm really way overworked and don't have the time to trace 'em all and mail them out. So, here's how to do it yourself:
Run this photo through your favorite enlarging software and blow it up to an 8 X 10 and print it on plain paper.



Draw a crosshatch of 1/4-1/2" squares on it. Buy a tracing pad and lay out some size grid that will give you these measurements as compared to the size of the 8 X 10. If your lower bout on the 8 X 10 is 6-1/4, double the size of the squares.
The lower bout is 12-1/2", upper is 9-1/8" and box length is 18-1/4".
Connect the dots on the large tracing pad compared to the 8 X 10. This is how I did it on this one.
If you have experience with photoshop or some other resizing software you can "cut" the photo up into parts and make several copies and tape them together or if you are lucky enough to have a large printer, just blow the photo up till you get the sizes.
Hope that helps!

Thanks, Haans.

I blew it up on an enlarging printer and the dimensions were very close to what you stated.(the upper bout ended up being 9-1/4" ,but I will tweek it to when I make the pattern)

I am figuring the depth at around 4" at the tail and 3-3/4" at the heel.

Brad