[TomB'sox]

Thank you Mark for starting this thread. I am very happy that this guitar is coming to fruition. I think after spending a lot of time here in the custom section of the AGF and following all the build threads and reading all the posts from the luthiers that most of us could come up with a word or two to assign to each builder, sort of a word association. They all have their own characteristic, at least in my mind, that one might associate with them. For Mark, for me, it is his ability to choose woods that all come together to form a beautiful expression of colors and depth and texture...wood art one might say. Then when Dennis AKA Cigarfan brought his two Hatchers to my house one Saturday morning, I was amazed by the sound and the sensitivity to touch they exhibited. I knew at that time, if I could swing it, I would like to have Mark build me a guitar to compliment my Kinnaird SJ.

One very nice thing is that Mark is only 3 1/2 hours by car from my house allowing us a chance to drive over, see the shop, have some lunch, talk guitars, and what was super fun for me, get a crash course in tapping and tones. He gave me several samples and son of a gun, I got to where I could really hear different tones and even sustains in some woods and not others. We selected the Koa for beauty (the back is one thing, but the sides are from another world man, maybe from the end of the rainbow in that picture Mark posted) as well as the many different notes I found in that piece. The same is true for the top, I felt like if I had a little longer, I could have found a complete scale in that top.

Needless to say, this is very exciting topped off by the personalization that really comes from meeting the man face to face handshake to handshake and touching the raw materials. I have very much left the design of this guitar up to Mark (at least after we had general discussions of likes and dislikes, sound, comfort etc) and have complete faith in him based on his body of work exhibited in this forum. He has some nice little surprises in store for the design elements that I hope you all like...I can't wait to see them in action.

A special thanks to the aforementioned Dennis for taking time to drive well out his way for me to meet him and his Hatchers....I don't know Mark, but maybe a marketing fee for Dennis hahahah.....

Thanks everyone for following along as Mark builds this little Pina for me.