[TomB'sox]

I met Ben at Woodstock this year, Sunday afternoon, late in the day, grabbed an Indian Rosewood Elliebelle model, gave her a 5 minute go, left some green stuff with Ben, and took her home. She is wonderful and I hope she has grown as found of me as I have of her. I told a buddy how good she was and son of a gun, he got one built for himself haha (aka Woody). Now that Ben has whipped out Mike's BRW/Redwood beauty (hanging in the finish cabinet right now), Ben is starting on my custom. Why you may ask, well hard to say, but it is kinda like potato chips, you just can't eat one. Ben's guitars makes you want another one, so what the heck, we only live once, so AWAY we go.

This is going to be another Elliebelle because I love the size. This one will have a cutaway which the first does not. It will have Honduran Rosewood back and sides. This particular piece of wood, Ben has had in his shop for 10 years waiting for somebody to pull the trigger. He said it is one of if not the best sounding wood in his shop. I don't know why it wasn't used before, but maybe I am the first one to believe him hahaha. I think it will be very pretty under finish, but does not have that wow factor in the raw. Maybe that is why it has sat??? Who knows, it is mine now.

The top is going to be Sitka which was cut over 40 years ago and has been drying and maturing for that long. Ben is crazy about this Sitka. We were originally going to use sinker Redwood, but due to aesthetics and how much Ben loves this Sitka, we are going with it. In a somewhat interesting twist, Ben has some really stiff redwood bracing material that we will be using, again not your normal bracing material, but neither Ben or I could really be considered normal. More on that later.

So I will be posting some pics of the build soon and at the rate of Mike's build, should be posting pics of a finished guitar I would say, next Tuesday at the latest hahaha!

PS. Visit Ben's facebook page if you want (Wilborn guitars) and watch some of his videos he does of his finished guitars. He is a funny guy and a heck of a guitar player (fiddle too I have been told)! I am fairly certain he teamed up with JR on an album and also have seen pics of him playing fiddle for Willie and Waylon at some point in the past. I have been fighting my Bromance for the guy, but he is hard to resist hahahahaha!!!!

I hope you enjoy the build!