Well folks, this is my final guitar picture post before we leave for the Montreal show. This guitar is fairly plain but the tone has stolen my heart. I am a minimalist and appreciate simple elegant designs in which the beauty of the wood can take center stage instead of a lot of bling.
Specs for this OM include back and sides of Cuban Mahogany which is a first build for me. This wood is very difficult to acquire since it is no longer exported from Cuba. I have heard from several luthiers that this is the "holy grail of the mahoganies". I must say that the tone is quite different from what I was expecting. To my ear, the tone reminds me more of the rosewood family than it does mahogany. It still has a nice strong bite in the midrange but it also has powerful RW bass and crisp fat trebles too. It was more brittle than I was expecting and I broke the first set of sides that I bent.
The top is a nice colorful stripe-y piece of Western Red Cedar with lots of beautiful medullar rays or cross grain silking. Top and back Purflings are maple and ebony lines. Curly African Sapele back strip, body and FB bindings bordered with a single black ebony line, Macassar Ebony headstock, one piece Wild Black Cherry neck, 25.4" scale length, Macassar Ebony 1-3/4" FB & 2-1/4" bridge. Gold Gotoh sealed tuners. Our family crest [Mc] Knight Head logo adorns the plain fret board at the 12th fret and another emblem of our Scottish ancestry; a "Luckenbooth Brooch" shaped sound port offers immediate feedback to the player.
Thanks for looking and we hope to see some of you in Montreal in a few days...
