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I just received my 8th guitar from my good friend and luthier here in Viet Nam. This time I wanted all Vietnamese wood. Except for the flower pot ebony truss rod cover and (I think) the braces are spruce, all the other wood is local.

Front, neck, back and sides are Toona febrifuga. It is in the Mahogany family.

Headstock cover, fret board, bridge and some of the binding is Dalbergia bariensis commonly called Cambodian rosewood and here it is called Viet Nam rosewood. There is a supplier in the States with this wood but is not a sponsor so I will not pass on the information. All I will say is that you can do a search for the Genus species and find the information.

I love this guitar already. The seventh string (G) chimes on top of the high E when I am fingerpicking chords. I have 2 12-strings but they are sometimes overbearing for my style and with so many high tuned strings the bass string notes stay in the background.

Here are some pics of the guitar "in Toona"

Beautiful and tasteful guitar- very nice.

The pun subject line is a real 'groaner'... you should be very satisfied!

John

Cicel, I fixed them for ya, the guitar looks great!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

the body wood looks very cool!

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Gorgeous instrument, what's the name of the luthier-friend? He sure has creativity in his blood!

Very nice.
Great Bridge design...Interesting 7th string. Very nice. so the matched
strings are both G's an octave apart?

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Great looking guitar Cecil!!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Looks good CecilJ! Here in the Philippines all i could get is "Toona Calantas"- very light, it's a bit more reddish-brown in color, and has a light fragrance. The chayotancy seems to be much better on the febrifuga- akin to narra from the pics!

How are the pores?

...it's rather problematic sourcing well-quartered wood big enough for guitars here (i think i'll need to trek to the mountainous regions sooner or later just for this hobby.) It's great to see luthiers in Vietnam have it good!

The materials and workmanship look superb, your friend is certainly a very talented builder. I like the 7 string design, I've been toying with a nine string and this may push me over the edge. Any chance of posting a soundclip?

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Very stylish guitar Cecil. I think you'll like the seventh string, I recently
built a 8-string, and it seems to be a guitar that people really enjoy
playing.
Is that the builders name on the truss rod cover?

long

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"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

Very Cool! The 7th string thing was done by Martin on the HD-7 Roger McGuinn model. It's pretty cool. There are a lot of really nice features on that guitar of yours! Congrats....

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Beautiful guitar, Cecil! This is a great thread with another interesting perspective.

Any chance your luthier buddy could chime in on the forum? Any chance you could show one or more of the other 7 guitars that he made for you?

Thanks for posting!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Cecil, that's pretty cool! So yeah, tell us more about its builder. Is he a native? How'd he get started? What is his shop like? Does he use power tools?

Nice looking guitar Cecil!It does remind me of narra. He's a tallented builder.

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

My friend/luthier is Do Dung. His website is http://www.thanhcammusic.com/

The single string Dan Bau instrument sounds incredible...kind of like a lonely violin in a haunted house.

If some of you were to invite him to the website, I am sure he would respond. Want to know about building instruments in high humidity? Want to trade some wood for wood? I have another friend that could carry some wood to California at Christmas time.

Dung would be very happy to hear from any of you.

I will send some more pictures of his work in another post.

Cecil

At JJ's request here are more Thanh Cam guitars:

Dreadnaught




Maple Jumbo






BRW OMC






5 string bass


Bearclaw 12 and Bubinga back




Vietnam rosewood back




Redwood Walnut classic

Pictures don't appear.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Does this guy work for nothing or what? $200.00 an F5 mando?

http://www.thanhcammusic.com/guitar.htm

Sorry Colin, I'm trying to figure it out

Cecil

[QUOTE=Serge Poirier] Does this guy work for nothing or what? $200.00 an F5 mando?

http://www.thanhcammusic.com/guitar.htm[/QUOTE]

Yes, people here work for nothing.

My first year of building a golf course here the average salary was about one dollar per day.

Now closer to Hanoi it is almost double.

A university student with a bachelor degree can start out at about 2,000,000 dong per month. 1,600,000 dong = $100.

The 125cc motorbike is the family car. I often see 4 and one time saw 6 (students) riding on the same bike.

I have learned many things about the human condition here and would say that a higher percentage of the Vietnamese are generally happier people than those in the USA. Oh yeah...they pluck their own chickens around here.

Serge,

I left out one very important point:

They make a rice whiskey here that can knock you off your feet and they sell Bia Hoi (fresh beer) from unbranded kegs that you can buy 8 glasses for a dollar.

Sorry for being late Cecil, WOW, what a great lesson in humility i just got, i'm sure you're right when you say that the people there are happier than us North Americans, being of humble backgrounds makes you appreciate what most people judge as unsignificant and i'll bet that those 6 kids on the same bike we're having a blast!

Although i must confess that i'm happy i wasn't born in a country where beer is that cheap, i'd still be on the party!

Thanks Cecil, i'm sure you learn more about the important stuff of life there than anywhere else in the world.

Serge