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I finished this about a month ago but haven't had time to put pictures up until now. This is my 6th guitar and it was a Christmas gift for one of my nieces. She is 9 1/2 and has been playing a plastic Target guitar for close to a year and a half. She's gotten pretty good despite that piece of junk. Before anyone says why would I give a 9 year old a guitar that I made, you should know that this kid takes care of her stuff better than I do at 41! Anyway, I thought I'd try a smaller guitar for her, so I built an L-00 roughly from the Grellier plans. I made the neck quite small since shes only 9 but not so small that she can't play it when she gets older. I tuned the top and back using Chladni patterns and it came out sounding pretty darned good. Easily the best of the 4 I've made outside of class. Here's the specs:

Top: Bearclaw Adirondack Spruce (Northwind Tonewoods)
Back & Sides: East Indian Rosewood (Allied Lutherie student grade)
Neck: Honduran Mahogany
Headplate, fingerboard & bridge: Macassar Ebony
Bindings: Curly Maple
Rosette: I'm not sure what it is. It's from an orphan side I got from RC Tonewoods in the swap meet last year.
24.75" scale length

I tried to use stuff I already had in my shop, so the purfling lines around the rosette don't match up with the top purfling, but my niece loved it. She was very, very excited. Here's some not very good pictures:

Very nice guitar, Matt! Your niece is a lucky girl. The photo of her playing the guitar is priceless!

Sweet!
I am sure she will treasure it forever!

Way to go Matt!
Good looking guitar and one happy player!

Joe

I think that's fantastic!

Who better to give a handmade guitar to than a motivated 9 year old! She'll treasure it for the next 80 years, and undoubtedly it will give her playing and motivation to learn a huge shot in the arm.

Looks great to me. Congratulations!

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Waddy

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Nice job Matt !! What a cool Uncle.

L.

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Thanks, everybody! It was pretty cool to see how excited she was by it. She was thrilled! She kept saying that she thought she was going to faint. Of course, my mom and sister were playing it up when she saw the case saying "Oh, look, Uncle Matt got you a case for your guitar." She wasn't fooled by that at all. She knows I started building guitars as a hobby and loved my first guitar when I showed it to her. She and her sister had stopped taking music lessons a few months ago when their teacher got married and moved away, but my sister told me they had already planned on restarting them with another teacher from their church this month, so it was good timing. Her sister plays the violin and the piano but they both are the kinds of kids who will pick up and learn on just about any instrument. Plus, they sing together so well. I will most likely build a guitar for her sister for next Christmas. She's 12 now so maybe an OM or a 000. I think I need to build one of these little L-00s for me, too. It sure was a lot of fun playing the thing. And it came out a bit better than the previous, which is what I'm after, too.

Matt

Yeah, ther is nothing like the look of pure excitement on someones face when they get a guitar given to them - gave away a couple of my early ones -it is a real treat to see !!! Well done.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Matt,

Great looking guitar! Nice story too.

How did you like the red spruce on a 00 sized body? How does it sound? And how thick did you leave the top? I have Red, Lutz, and Carpathian on-hand for a 00 build with Cuban Mahogany and I would like to use the red spruce for the top........but I've been concerned it would be too stiff for such a small body. Thoughts?

BTW, I don't think I've ever seen bearclaw on red spruce, nice.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Thanks. The top is 2.6mm thick above the bridge and tapers down to 2.3mm below the bridge. I came to this number after measuring the stiffness properties in class with Alan Carruth. I took all the tops I have up to his shop and measured them all since I'm not set up to do it at home. I then used numbers from my first guitar, an OM, to come up with how thick this top should be. The numbers actually said 2.4mm but I chickened out and left it at 2.6mm. The guitar itself came out very nicely. It's very balanced and has a lot more bass than I thought it would be for such a small guitar. I tuned the plates using Chaladni patterns and ended up with nice clean patterns, which Alan says is a good thing for getting it to sound good. Seemed to work. The ring and a half mode didn't close up on the bass side of the guitar but he also says that is common for non-symmetrically braced guitars. I think it's more important to know the stiffness properties of the wood you are using more so than which type of spruce it is. A less stiff top would have ended up thicker. It's a nice sounding guitar. I still have some cosmetic flaws to work out, but overall I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Matt

Hey Matt, you can be my uncle if you want - that is a really cool gift! She looks as if she is already getting some good style in her guitar playing. That photo shows a nice C-chord and a good right hand shape! I am sure this new instrument will encourage her to play a whole lot more.
Mark

Very Nice Matt!

I hope to do a L-00 sometime this year!

Ken

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