NCAL meets today (Sunday May 7, 2017) from 2 through 5 in Ervin's shop in Oakland, and all interested persons are welcome. http://ncal.club for more info.

I was fascinated by your birds-mouth bridle joint, Bruce.

I see that you departed somewhat from the traditional Martin model by making the sides of the top channel parallel, rather than having the same taper as the diamond underneath.

Was this just to facilitate the fitting (which it undoubtedly would ) or was there some other reason ?

Bird's Beak
 

The bridal joint on the Single 0 is more Martinesque than on the other examples. I don't know why Martin chose to do it as they did since it seems much more difficult to me . . . not to mention more fragile. I did my first attempts w/o finding out how Martin approached it, then did a little research for the Single 0, and have subsequently returned to my own thinking.

Dream Series final
 

I hope to ship the Dream guitar off this week, and took advantage of the morning sun to take a few photos first. The guitar is very successful, and will soon be available at Dream Guitars in North Carolina.

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Dream/donefront2.jpg http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Dream/donerear.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Dream/donegraft.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Dream/donecut1.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Dream/doneheadfront.jpg http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Dream/doneheadback.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Dream/donetop.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Dream/doneback.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Dream/donebackstrip.jpg

Love that back, rest of the guitar is pretty nice also. Is that Dream Guitars in Asheville North Carolina? Asheville is not that far from Knoxville might have to make a drive through the mountains to see this one.

Yes, THAT Dream guitars!

Last week I had a fellow bring in a half back sized piece of BRW about 3/8" thick which was too cupped to be resawn easily by a casually skilled bandsaw operator, and so I rose to the challenge. I was rewarded by being given a nicely matched BRW back which has a serious drying check in just one half of it, nearly the full length. The customer knows I have had good luck ripping such pieces and rejoining them into four piece backs which are virtually undetectable, and that I always disclose it to the financial advantage of the buyer.

Having just demonstrated my re-saw prowess to myself, I decided to take a different path, and attempted to re-saw the good half of the back into one flawless pair. The good half was just a tiny hair under 1/4" thick, and very rough on the outside surfaces requiring some serious cleanup, so the risk of losing the whole thing was high. Needless to say this was successful or I would not be sharing this here. . . or would I?

Here are some pics of the cracked half and the now joined re-sawn half. It cleaned up at .068", which works for me.

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/BRWresawnot1.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/BRWresawnot2.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/BRWresawback.jpg

Well dog gone, that was worth the trouble wasn't it, beautiful piece!!!!

I guess the two pieces will be together until death do them part.

It is HHG, so divorce is an option, but it would be pretty sticky.

Side note, a big thanks to Bruce and Ervin for putting the meeting together, it was lots of fun. Bruce's guitar sounds great btw, super cool bass

Vancouver Show Masterclass
 

I will be giving a MasterClass in late June at the Vancouver International Guitar festival on one of my favorite subjects: How the modern guitar is different from the traditional guitar (and why it matters).

Apparently this will require advance sign-up and I have an web-address for you to do that here.

The NCAL meeting in Ervin's shop went well enough considering the snafu that occurred in getting the word out. I relied upon the out going president's secretarial staff to do the emailing and they neither did it not told me they weren't going to. So I had to get something else happening at the last moment. My thanks to Brad hall (around here somewhere) for stepping up to the plate and getting it done. Brad is now officially the "archivist" for our disorganization.

There will soon be minutes from the meeting and also some video clips once I process Tadol's raw footage. There were several great shares at the meeting, including Jessupe's latest and Erivin's lecture on the acoustic guitar's iconic role in our culture.

Meanwhile, the all-tree Uke is coming along:

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/TreeUke/readyforback.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/TreeUke/backbraced.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/TreeUke/closed1.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/TreeUke/closed2.jpg

Because I won't get it done before I spend most of June out of the shop unless I get it started NOW, I have today joined the plates on Mike Wilhoyte's 2nd Sexauer Dread. The first is 18ish, and this one will be 28ish; BRW and Adi.

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/joinback.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/jointop.jpg

On hand I have abalone purfling in a variety of widths, .030, .047, .063, and .080. None looked right to me on this Uke, so I made my own from some Ablam scraps I also had on hand. This is .035" wide and seems right to me:

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/TreeUke/toppurfling1.jpg

Looks beautiful. Really going to pop under finish.

Got the rosette and back strip into the Dread:

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/rosette1.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/backstrip1.jpg

Boring . . .
 

I don't think so, but I can see where others might. It is my life, after all!

I bagged the top I was going to use for this pre-war D-28 inspired guitar. It was a great top, but there was going to be a little more visible run-out than I want for this customer. The new one, in the go bar deck right now receiving its X braces, is an example of "Old Standard's" AAA grade and is stupid expensive, but I am throwing it in as compensation for a few more worm derived pinholes than I expected in this otherwise great set of Brazilian. I have had very good luck with Old Standard's grading in the past, and doubt they'll have let me down on this one. The other top will likely get used soon enough, and whatever guitar that is will be privileged to have it.

The back braces are in!

http://sexauerluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/backbraces.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/backstrip3.jpg

Hello Bruce, this is a gorgeous set of BRW. But I wonder why it dosen't have any center strip to reinforce the seam, is it because the joint is tide enough or are you going to add the pyramid-patch treatment later like your All tree uku.

I don't put in the center strip reinforcement until the back is ready to go on to the otherwise completed box. It will be Martin-esque, when it exists, much like most of my guitars.

Such clean work, and such beautiful brw. There is something about the vintage look that calls to me and I'm looking forward to following this build.

Yes, aside from that I hear they're reworking the song "John Henry" cause Bruce is a guitar making machine! The volume of output is quite amazing, let alone the quality.

Thank you, my friends.

I acquired the set of Brazilian I am using for the guitar about a dozen years ago during Allied Lutherie's "stumpwood" era. I am fortunate to have known the principles in that endeavor for as long as they have had the business plus a few days, and I was allowed to cherry pick several thousand sets as they were being sawn, which accounts for much of the great BRW I still have. Some of that wood was too knarly for me to ever consider using, and some of it was indistinguishable from the best of 50 to a hundred years ago, and that is mostly what I chose. However, I also chose a few special sets which seemed great to me, but had other qualities. This is one of those.

This set is nearly perfectly quarter sawn despite its curvature. All the way across.

This set is flitch matched. Usually, Flitch matched sets are four pieces wide enough for backs and long enough for sides. This set seems to have been cut from two billets generated from one biger billet. I wonder how that happened, but I recognized it immediately and grabbed it.

Many stumpwood sets are flamed at one end only. This set has a mild flame running from one end to the other.

I have just done the thicknessing work on the sides, and will bend them soon. As must be true with flitch matched wood, they are a replica of the back pattern:

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/sides1.jpg

son of a flitch
 

Now, how cool is that?

Pretty cool! Thanks for noticing.

This truly incredible set sat in plain sight on my "woodlocker" page for years before this customer noticed it. Truly a one of a kind opportunity. Of course there are others.

Absolutely stunning BRW inventories, the black cocobolo (#17) also looks amazing...would love to see the finish guitar if that's not too much trouble to ask!

Another back with off the chart character, plus matching sides, incredible! Hope you can do a quick comparison of these D's

Here's the new top, fully braced:

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/topbracing.jpg

This is as creamy a red spruce as I've ever seen.

Very traditional bracing...:up: It is going to be a killer dread no doubt...:)

As many of you know, I have been building "in the air" for the past nearly 20 years now. That means I don't use molds, relying instead on things fitting well enough to not need the support. Here is an example of a side which nearly fits the template just sitting there. For any luthiers who are tempted to say "but mine are bent that well", I suggest you try moldless construction. It turns out to be easy and quick, but mainly means increased flexibilty and has the side benefit of leading one more rapidly towards mastery, IMO, of course.

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/oneside.jpg

This was bent in my Fox Bender, and I used my new Keenovo blanket/thermostat/timer device. Turned it down to 251 f from 260 f, and upped the minutes to 12 from 10. This thing is a Mercedes compared to the blankets I was using for the last 20 years. Look on eBay.

Tomorrow I plan to close the dread.

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/kerfing.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/neckblock.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/LP17/Wilhoyte/reenforcement.jpg