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I just strung up my ninth guitar this afternoon:





Details:

13 fret neck, slot head, pyramid bridge, sorta like a jumbo, sorta like an OM; basically a 13 fret with dread dimensions, but with a tighter waist
Sitka spruce top
Quartersawn white oak back and sides
Honduran Mahogany neck
Indian Rosewood headplate, fingerboard, bridge, and binding
Custom red and white herringbone purfling and matching rosette
100% hide glue construction
Evo frets
Grover tuners
Royal Lac Post Catalyzed finish over Silver Tip epoxy pore fill

Comments:

For a guitar that has only been a guitar for a few hours, it sounds pretty good! That's encouraging. It only gets better from here.

The pores in the white oak were pretty hard to fill. Just something to keep in mind. I like it as a back and side wood, but those craters make for a lot more work.

This was the guitar upon which I experimented with spraying Royal Lac Post Catalyzed. It's a pretty good finish, I must say. I am still going to use the UV cure finish materials I have been experimenting with for the next several guitars, but I started finishing this guitar before I got my sea legs with the UV cure stuff, so I stuck with the Royal Lac. I want to reserve judgment on its durability until this guitar has been a guitar for a while. It sprayed on really well, and buffed up just fine. A person could do a lot worse for a finishing material than RLPC.

I still made lots of mistakes, including a few really dumb ones, but overall, number 9 is better than number 8, which was better than number 7, etc. I really love this hobby. Getting better at this has a tangible result: better guitars.

Nice! This is the one I saw at your place when it was at pore fill stage? Looks great!


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Thanks! Yes, the same one. It took me a while to wrap this one up, due to the finishing education detour.

Nice!

I love a 13 fret guitar. I have built a few, but all smaller bodies. I love the look of this one with a generous body size, and the oak looks great. Nice job. Is this one for you, or for a lucky (or paying) other?

Congrats Don she looks fantastic!

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Love an oak guitar! Great work


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Nice work Don, looks great, thanks for sharing!
I built a few 13 fretters - I like the idea of moving the bridge a little closer to the center of the soundboard...

Looks great Don! I’m just finishing up my third 13 fret.


Steve

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks, Mark. It will probably stay with me, but let’s see what happens. There are enough little “learning experiences” on this one where I would only feel right keeping it for myself or selling/giving it to someone with the understanding that it has cosmetic flaws. My next one (number 10) will go to my nephew, who works at TKL. He and I will be trading a guitar for a fancy schmancy Cedar Creek case, custom made for this body style. He will get the better end of that deal financially, but it helps me in lots of ways, too. I can make Cedar Creek cases my standard when I eventually try to sell to strangers.

Thanks, Hesh! And you will be glad to know that I used a tiny ledge overhanging the finish edge when I glued on the bridge yesterday with hot hide glue (no urea for this particular task). And I waited until after the bridge was glued on to route out the saddle slot, so as to get the intonation just right.

This pyramid bridge is slightly larger than the norm, as well. I make mine 6” long, per the norm, but 1.25” wide instead of the standard 1”. I like the extra gluing surface this provides, and it gives a bit more real estate for placement of the saddle slot. The string holes are placed along a slanted line (like the saddle slot), instead of straight across.

I’m waiting to let the guitar settle in before I finesse the frets and the nut, and apply some Feed N Wax to the fingerboard.

See, I listen every now and then!

Thanks, Robbie. Yes, the bridge placement is an important part of this design. The lower bout is rounder, less squashed, than the butt of a dread. Using a regular 25.4” dread scale with the 13 fret neck puts the bridge in a good spot, very close to the middle of the lower bout’s “circle.” I also moved the soundhole up toward the neck a smidge (compared to a dread). It all comes out as a familiar vintage look, but not really a Martin or Gibson copy, either. I’m going to work with this body shape for a while (except for specific requests), and see how good I can get at making it all come out right.

look great!
feels great to finish one!

Mike

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Mike Collins

Looks great. It's been a while since I finished a guitar. I finished a violin a few weeks ago, but it isn't the same. I can't play violin, but I can play SOME on a guitar! I thought that I was the only one, who does things different every time. Nice shape that you came up with.

The oak looks cool. It surprised me that people built with oak. I never thought of it as a tone wood; but I am wrong. I've actually seen a couple in person.

I bet the pores of Padauk have the pores of White Oak beat.

100% hide. Cool. I got lazy on the one I'm working on, and some glue ups are fish glue. I use it like Ken Parker uses epoxy. Generally I just use hide. I'm getting less and less tied down to anything. Isn't that the opposite of what usually happens?

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Why be normal?

Thanks, Ken. Yeah, the oak can surprise you. Flat sawn oak is not very attractive (to me, anyway), but quartersawn is really quite striking. Regarding the sound, these boards didn't have a very good tap tone. But once I put them together as a guitar body, the box was pretty lively, and it sounds really good with strings on it (even this early). The oak bent easily. The only downside (for me) was dealing with the pores.

I will use modern adhesives as part of the finishing process, like epoxy for pore filling, or CA glue for touch ups. But for holding the parts of the guitar together, I have not found anything that performs better than hide glue, and that's without regard to whether it helps the guitar sound better (people debate that question).

Nice looking guitar Don,

I love the look of your choice of wood, very clean looking.



I never thought a lot about how it effects the sound but it sure helps in repair-ability (is that a word?)

Cheers,
Bob

I love quartersawn oak.

Congrats, Don! It looks fantastic. And I love your last line.

Hey, you know who else made up words, probably more than anybody else in the English language? William Shakespeare. So, you’re in good company! And you’re right about the glue making repairs easier, of course.

Nice job! I like your willingness to stretch the envelope a bit instead of copying standard designs. I need to do more of that.

Congratulations!

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Thanks! It's a tricky balance for me. I prefer a traditional look, but I don't want to copy any of the classics. I think this model rides the fence pretty well. Different, but familiar.