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hi. this one is inspired from the gibson j-185. it has a sitka top, flame maple back and sides, quilty maple rosette and head, mahogany neck and binding and ebony fret board and bridge. it's a french polish finish.

the last two i've made have had mahogany for back and sides and it is really interesting to hear the difference. i'm a big fan of maple now!

i put the x braces wide and forward a bit and did a live back bracing from the gore/gillet book. i'm really happy with the sound and definition.

thanks for looking. any critiques and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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http://www.wideskyguitars.com
https://www.instagram.com/wide_sky_guitars/

a few more photos

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http://www.wideskyguitars.com
https://www.instagram.com/wide_sky_guitars/

That's really quite special, not to mention spectacular.
Nice woods, design, details, and looks very clean and well executed. A real pleasure to see.

I see you are a cabinetmaker, that explains a lot...

I take it all back!! Is that a pencil mark for the back brace pocket left on the lining visible through the soundhole?? Shoddy work.
(Kidding! - weird sense of humor, this time of day on a Sunday )

Regarding Gore book - out of curiosity, what frequencies are the top. back and body resonances?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Beautiful guitar and beautiful detail work, well done.

Bob

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http://www.bobmatthewsguitars.co.uk

Beautiful work! Unique aesthetic, superbly crafted. Tim

Everything about it is stunning!!!!

Wow, There are so many gorgeous details. The inlay on the back of the head stock is really nice. I have not seen that before. Nicely done bevel as well. The whole guitar holds together visually with the appearance of understated elegance, yet everywhere I look there are amazing design details. Wow

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Hey, Patch,
I scrolled through your photos slowly, just soaking in the details and finding more to like with each new photo that came up. This is one heck of a nice guitar, and I think your design choices are very tasteful. Nothing strikes me as out of place or over done. Just very nice work in every small detail. You have every right to be extremely proud of this guitar.
Congratulations!
Patrick

+1 to what Patrick said!

Very well done and it does indeed have a Gibson vibe going for it - beautiful guitar!

Here is a suggestion for you if you want it.

The nut is the only thing that I see that could be improved a bit. Nut making is NOT easy and in the Lutherie schools it's a bit of a right of passage to believe that newer builders/repair folks need to make about 100 nuts before they start to get the shape and function down.

As builders we rarely get the opportunity to practice making nuts in so much as the nuts for us tend to have a one-to-one relationship with guitars produced.

Nuts should visually complement the instrument or simply not be something that anyone really notices. One of the ways to do this is with a minimalistic approach to nut making removing all non-essential material.

Looking at yours it could benefit from a back bevel that would also remove additional material and the slots look pretty deep too. Back bevels are easy and self explanatory and I suspect that you know what I mean. Simple take a look at a modern Gibson nut and you will see the curve on the back side. Curve, bevel, what ever fits the lines of the instrument at hand.

Nut slots are a little more difficult but still not difficult at all once you have a method. We have discussed who started this thing that nut slots should be only as deep as around half the respective string diameter. I don't subscribe to this either but I also don't want material sticking up above the strings because it can interfere with one's playing style at times.

What I learned and what works very well for me is to sacrifice a set of strings and on repairs often the old strings that the thing came in with, or a new set of strings on a new build to help determine nut slot depth. So we use a honking file on the guitar strung to pitch to file the nut slot depth right onto the top of the strings. When I am hitting all of the strings I stop. Prior my nut slots were cut near the final depth but not all the way which is done when the nut is completed, fully shaped, the ends are super flush with the fretboard and headstock, and the beveling and excess material has been removed.

A further step that I personally have not done yet but plan to is to make and install the nut prior to finishing and then finish the instrument with the nut on getting finish on the nut ends as Gibson and a few others do. It looks great in my view and so long as one is using bone the nut should last a while too. This gives us the opportunity to file the nut/neck transition to be absolutely flush.

After filing right down to the strings the strings are pitched, the new nut is sanded, polished in our nut buffer....., and installed with a couple very small drops of CA. I like CA for nuts because they need to be serviceable and easy to remove. CA will give in sheer very easily so we are exploiting a weakness of the glue.

Anyway it's a detail sure but from the looks of your very cool guitar I think that you might welcome having the opportunity to take the details to the next level?

But the real message from me here is that your guitar is striking, beautiful, and looks to be very well built! Great job!

Here is a pic of a nut having it's slots filed down, or the top filed down on the guitar and to the strings. The first time I saw this done and then did it myself I was pretty concerned wrenching away with a big ole file on a brand new guitar but you get used to it and you also recognize that it's pretty safe to do.

Excellent work in every regard. Love the design aesthetic. Great execution.

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sweat the small stuff.

I don't get guys like you. Where does the skill set come from to knock them out of the park right out of the gate? Great guitar, I particularly like the back of the headstock treatment...

Well done Patch. I'm a fan of Maple also. Good advice from Hesh. Only other thing it could use is a label.

The bevel isn't really a bevel eh. More of a round over. Looks cool. How'd you do it?

Cheers,
Danny

thank you all for the kind words! means a great deal coming from this community.

hesh, this is great thank you! on a another thread you talked about the importance of nut making and i was thinking about what you said there when working on this one. i've got a lot more to think about for the next one now. i agree it is not easy and the nut can make a guitar a great player, ok or not at all. when you file to the strings wouldn't that taper the nut some? if it does, is it enough to notice or is it something that really doesn't draw attention? i like the idea of putting the finish on with the nut in place, i'd like the transition from the neck to nut feel seamless.

dannyv, there is a label in there, just you can only see it looking at an angle through the sound hole. i like the low key approach. yea i guess it's a round over more than a bevel. once i attach the top to the sides i route out the binding and purfling channels. then using those lines i draw out the arc that i want bevel/round over to take on the top and side. cut those out then add the purfling to the top and side then fit a larger chunk of whatever the binding is going to be. i leave the braces rough so the top doesn't move too much. i add lining to the inside of the bevel/round over to give the top support.

meddling fool, i've been a finish carpenter for years and now a furniture/cabinet maker. 20 years ago i was a guitar tech for a bit. so this guitar making thing is a really welcome combo of these and some other things. its wicked hard though!

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https://www.instagram.com/wide_sky_guitars/

Patch,
I know I speak for a number of us, when I say, we would have liked it better if you said this was #30. As soon as I find something to criticize, I'll let you know.

Great work

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

And where is your tutorial on the inlay on the back of the headstock???

Beautiful guitar!!!

wow! Love the headstock inlay!

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

the back of the head stock is inspired by jim watts' work. he lives sort of near me and while i was trying to figure out how to put the neck on my first i got to visit him in his shop and pick his brain. great guy, beautiful guitars!

i made the inlay first and bound it. angled the edges just a tiny bit. covered the back of the head in blue tape. put the inlay where i wanted it and traced it with a blade. removed the tape where the inlay would go and cut out the wood. the inlay fits really snug and gets clamped in place. when its done i use a scraper to level.

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http://www.wideskyguitars.com
https://www.instagram.com/wide_sky_guitars/

I don't know if I should feel inspired or just quit building guitars. Beautiful ! Clinton

Patch, that is one beautiful guitar, and especially impressive considering it is only your third!! Thanks for sharing.

Hi ya Patch: Yeah when you file to the strings you impart a slight angle on the nut top, the same angle as your break angle which is typically about half the set-back angle of the headstock or around 7 degrees. 7 degrees is not much and I still either file a 45 degree angle on the nut's back side taking care to not extend it to the part of the nut that sits in the nut slot.... or round the back to get a more eloquent, less massive look.

Folks in the trade when evaluating someone's Lutherie chops typically will check out things like the neck joint, fret work, joinery, bracing, etc. On the OLF we tend to be a bit woodworkercentric in my view and rarely do we discuss the... fact.... that a guitar is actually a tool for musicians to use to make killer music with. As such set-up and playability issues which in my view tend to be neglected on Lutherie forums are rarely discussed. Perhaps it's time to add a bit of value in this respect?

In the trade and back to that 100 nut thing the rite of passage is for the student to be making his or her 37th nut, generally out of corian since it's cheap for students and then the student wants to show the latest nut to the instructor. The instructor comes by, takes a look, says "that's nice" picks it up and slings it accross the room into the trash and says "make another one." So quickly does this happen that the instructor really did not take a decent look and that's the point, it takes about 100 nuts for it all to start to make sense to many of us.

When I first heard this I thought in my typical manner that perhaps this process could be a bit more civilized. Now hundreds of nuts later at least in my case practice does get you closer to perfect.

By the way my instructor is my business partner these days and we are no longer throwing our nuts in the trash either.... Perhaps it's because we both have lots of edge tools at hand....

And if I did not mention this earlier - great guitar and I think that you have some real ability here!!!

this is way too true. unless you've played a lot of guitar and played a lot of different guitars setting one up is tricky and hard to do just by going with recommended hundredths or 64ths of an inch numbers. then you need to about the player who is going to play it and the way they handle a guitar. i think this goes along with your 100 nut theory. it's a hard one to just read about and understand.

i feel a bit out of practice and i'd been thinking about taking the nut and bridge out of 2 of my older acoustics and making new ones just to do it, now i'm going to. about 20 years ago i was a tech in a high end rental shop in la. this spot was a museum of electrics and acoustics and amps and these would all get rented out to recording sessions. one of my jobs was to set up the guitars before and after they went out. we also housed session players gear and i'd take care of that too. it was a cool job but it had it's stresses, i hated la and i got burned out.

thanks for the great advice and encouragement!

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http://www.wideskyguitars.com
https://www.instagram.com/wide_sky_guitars/

Nothing left to say...



Cheers,
Bob

Very niece to look at, Patch. Can you do a sound file?
Interesting words from Hesh.

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.