Hi everyone..
Just a quick update on the progress of my mahog/Adi deep body OM.
Quote:
Originally Posted by enalnitram
...the pics look great. man. left handed, eh?
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Sadly, the answer is no. The tone bars were backward.
I'm glad you caught this. Thank you.
I called my mentor and he responded with the version of "Oops." that begins with the letter 'F'.
I guess the tracings were taken from the top of the vintage Martin. Larry forgot to turn them over. He felt bad.
In every crisis lies an opportunity...
I called a couple of luthiers to ask their opinion as to whether we should redo the tone bars. One said "yes", the other "don't bother". They each gave their reasons. These discussions in and of themselves were an education.
After discussion and thought, we decided to do it right...redo the tone bars. Larry did a fantastic job of getting the old ones off and gluing up new ones (all the with sides on, mind you). The new tone bars are butted, not tucked (too hard to cut the pockets with the sides on) and barely a shadow remains of the old.
We recarved the tone bars, glued on the back, routed out binding, purfling, backstrip and tail wedge channels, glued up all of the trim elements. The new pics were taken as I was sanding the box. I'm at 220 grit at the time of writing.
One of the design elements was the orientation of the diagonal check purfle against the maple tail wedge. In the end I chose to oppose the diagonal check and the wedge to make it look like the purfle is supporting the wedge. What would you have chosen?
One thing I would do differently is go with the diagonal check for the rosette as well. We chose the green shell (Larry did the inlay) prior to the choice of the diagonal check. Larry was assuming a BWBWB purfle.
The next big job is to tackle the neck shaping. Larry has an angry-looking rasp that likes to eat mahogany for lunch. Should be fun.
Enjoy the pics
Click For Complete Set of Pics
