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A guy called me today and said he used to be a builder. He is moving to CA and was wandering if I would be interested in any of his wood. Of course I said "Sure, I'll take a look". What a bunch of hooey. The ONLY thing that was even usable, and that is still up for question, is these sides. One set of hondouran/lam/birch, two sets of brazilian/lam/birch. Yes, Bruce, I currently have under my roof some Brazilian. Just to be a stinker, I quized him a bit to see where it came from. Of course he gave me the "it was imported in the '60s..." It was all I could do to not say "That's interesting that you imported it, and butchered it into veneers and laminated it, and bent it to a shape that you don't really know what it is except that it's "classical"". But I refrained.
Anyway. Anyone want these sides. Like I said, they are LAMINATED, I repeat, LAMINATED. NOT SOLID WOOD. Yes, LAMINATED.
Bent to some unknown classical shape. Looks sort of Rimerez-esque to me but they've been sitting on a shelf for more than forty years (as the story went) so I'm sure they have changed in shape.
First come first served. You pay shipping. Get them out of my shop please.
Paul

What, no LAMINATED backs to go with 'em?

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Paul,

I feel like such a snob. Something luthier related, free, and I don't even want it! What could a person use those for? Peghead overlay?

Jeff

Keeping warm. Makes quick heat in a wood stove

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
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1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
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Jeff, I felt like a bit of a snob myself when he showed them to me. He was thinking "this is such amazing wood that I can't see throwing it away". I was thinking, "yeah, because then there wouldn't be room in your trash cans for your regular trash".
Head plates might be an option but I never use brazilian. Do you want them for that?
Otherwise I'm thinking cold beer, nice cigar and a camp fire.

Sorry no such luck. But he did indeed have laminated tops. I could understand if the grain was really nice, you could in theory get more than one top out of a particular board. But these even looked yucky. I once bought some cheapos off ebay for $6 each. I can't believe someone could laminate one for less than that. At least my cheapos would sound like wood vs glue.

Paul, I also picked up 40 laminated tops a while back. These were stock from Kaman (Ovation and Takamine). However, I only paid about $1-2 a piece for them and they appear to be okay. Anyway, they make good cheap templates for laying out tops and backs. I also plan to eventually use some on travel guitars as each can yield 2 small tops. I'm not interested in the laminate sides for one of the same reasons as you, I don't and won't do BRW. However, I have heard some very nice guitars, and pretty expensive, which used laminate sides with solid top and backs. Someone ought to grab these.Don A38444.7875925926

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

Paul,
How much is shipping to Gibsonton, fl 33534? I just met a guy who interested in starting to build. He wants to build 2 guitars at once. A cheap one to make all the newbie mistakes on and a nice one that he hopes not to make the same mistkes on.. He may be interested. But for the record, I takes me too much time to build a guitar to use laminate anything, other than a neck and maybe some binding with purf -----Snick

p.s. is it me, or does it look like the guy who bent those sides may have bent the set on the right upside down? Doesn't look like the grain is going to match up at the end graft ----Snick

Hey, many of the best, and most expensive classical guitars in the world are made with laminated sides. There's no need to be snobby about it, unless you think you can turn your nose up to such builders as Ramariz, Smallman, Ruck, Schramm, Scherzer, etc. It has nothing to do with cheapness, and everything to do with isolating the sides from sound production, a very useful thing in classical guitars with there limited energy input from nylon strings.

Daniel Friederich laminates his sides as well, and probably had a huge hand in popularizing it. Its almost as though its the opposite of the traditional Spanish method (Torres/Santos/M. Ramirez as opposed to the current Ramirez et al). An interesting approach, but it usually carries the clause that the "other" method is inefficient, which I don't very much buy into. To each maker their own method though...

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If you'll ship to the UK then I'll take them, and some laminated tops as well as long as the soundholes haven't been cut already.

We resonator guitar builders are quite happy with laminates - in fact, many reso builders prefer them.

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Pete
http://www.petewoodmanguitars.com

The sides are spoken for already. The first came and the first was served. I didn't take any of the tops as I found them to be utterly useless (sorry, I didn't realize that reso builders like them).

Oh well, serves me right for going away and having fun (studying at bluegrass camp with Doug Cox, Tim O'Brien, Darrell Scott, John Moore and others too numerous to mention). I should have stayed at home and checked the Internet instead   

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Pete
http://www.petewoodmanguitars.com