Thanks to all of you guys for the kind words and comments, it really feels
good! You bet I am already thinking of building other guitars, it will be for
the spring now: there's no heat in my shop (I live in Maine…) and I will
spend the winter recording/producing new music. A childhood friend of
mine already wants me to build him a OMish rosewood or walnut guitar,
and I would like to build a second guitar for myself, an OMish thing with
maybe a shorter 25.75 scale using local woods. I do not intend to do this
commercially though… I have little merit, it is my first build but I have
done a fair number of neck resets, refrets, crack repairs and so on in the
past few years. I also do some carpentry on the side, I just love working
with wood.
[QUOTE=Josh H]
What kind of tuning pegs are those?[/QUOTE]
Those are 4:1 Stew-Mac Five-star banjo pegs with ebony buttons, they're
lighter and smaller than the Waverlies and in my opinion work as good, if
not better.
[QUOTE=Colin S]
What's the rosette made from? My only comment for the future would be
that it would look better for the pick guard (if you really must use one) to
butt up against the outside edge of the rosette.[/QUOTE]
I made the rosette out of leftover BR, IER, koa and BWB thin purfling. To
say the truth it was a Martin top with a plastic rosette that I routed out, I
messed up (the soundhole was misaligned by a hair, but enough to
bother me), so I decided to cut a bigger soundhole and patch up with
what I had, I came up with that… There's a reinforcement under the top
and a koa binding strip to close the soundhole. I also thought a larger
hole would put out more treble, and it did. You're totally right for the PG
but the rosette is so large that it really looked weird on the outside line of
it.
[QUOTE=JJ Donohue]
- Looks like a 14-fret from the pics. You said it was a 000-12 Fret
- How did you decide on a 26.5" scale?
- Why banjo tuners?
- How thin are the plates?
- Great looking finish. You said shellac...French Polish?[/QUOTE]
- The body is a Martin 000/12 fret form factor (with the longer upper
bout), I decided to use a Martin 14 fret neck.
- I use ornkey and DADGAD tunings practically all the time, I wanted
something to give more string tension to the lower strings, but without
drastically changing my left-hand technique, as I would have to on a
baritone. Worked pretty well.
- You can't beat the 4:1 ratio for speed, I change tunings all the time.
- I think around .090 for the back, .080 sides, and maybe .100 for the
middle of the top and probably close to .080/.070 on the edges. I don't
have large calipers, so it's all by ear so to speak…
- I tried to fench-polish and I failed… I applied the shellac with a rag,
many, many coats and wet-sanded.
[QUOTE=Arnt]
Looks great! The shellac finish looks kind of dark (I like it), what type of
shellac is it? Is the 12 fret 000 a 14 fret (almost!  ) because you used a
longer scale than conventionally, and if so, did you adjust the bracing for
it?[/QUOTE]
I used Zinsser seal coat dewaxed shellac, it looks really good out of the
can but I mixed some aniline dye with it to make it look a bit more
vintage. The bracing fell exactly in place with the longer scale, I didn't
have to alter the placement although I used a much smalled maple bridge
plate and added a brace behind it, as per Proulx or Kinnaird guitars.
|
good job 
