February 2019 Shop Update
Greetings!
February has flown by and I have been thinking about writing this all month only to realize the month is almost over! Since last time there have been a few new things in the shop. I had a table at the California World Guitar Show in San Rafael (hello to everyone I meet there!). That was a great show, with a lot of amazing vintage guitars, and a part of me wishes I could have just strolled around playing them, but I meet a lot of really great folks hanging out at my table. Since then preparations have been going on full swing for the Central Coast Guitar Show the last weekend in March and the Vancouver International Guitar Festival the end of June.
With Vancouver in mind
I jumped into some design work I had mentioned potentially doing last update. I wanted to create a new model, an intermediate size between the RB-0 and 000. Thankfully a while back the Guild of American Lutherie’s quarterly magazine included an article on drafting methods for body design which was immensely helpful in creating a graceful design without resorting to free hand drawing a shape(over and over), or worse, having to figure out some kind of computer drafting program, haha. It took a few drafts to get a shape and size that I was a happy with, one that fit nicely as a transition between the other two body designs and I am very excited to be building the first in curly maple with Spanish cedar accents. Currently the back is braced and I am working on a new challenge, making homemade multi line purfling so I can offset the bright white maple with some of the last of the big hunk of cedar I have been making necks out of for what feels like an age. There will also be a few other new and fun cedar centric features on the guitar. I will certainly be featuring some photos of it as well as the mahogany guitar I am building alongside it next time.
Besides new guitars
I have also redone the Audio Gallery on the site for the very good reason that my buddy Pete came by the shop a few weeks ago and let me record him demoing the guitars I currently have strung up in my possession, and I got to do the recording with a reasonable quality condenser mic hooked up to the camera. This means that not only can you really hear the guitars, but there is someone playing them who is worth hearing! The gallery is broken up into models now with the aim of building a selection of samples of each model to demonstrate the tonal palette each works within. A few Samples of one guitar is nice, but how much better to hear a variety with different woods and players to get an idea of what is possible within each guitar model. I would highly recommend you listen to Pete play a little bit on each guitar model I currently offer. I will be adding more as I build more through the spring.
That’s all for now, thanks for reading! If you want to check out any of the instruments I currently have in the shop please don’t hesitate to contact me and set up a shop visit. I am currently offering both sunburst guitars for $1500. They are unique looking, amazing sounding guitars I am offering for a very low price on account of a few minor finish flaws. I am also available for a range of repair and set up work, let me know if you have a guitar that needs a little attention! Take care until next time.
Sneak peak of some cedar inlay material being epoxied to fill and stabilize for resawing.