Rebecca Urlacher=new build thread
 

So hosting B.I.G. has some dangers. Surrounded by amazing guitars and amazing people. Well Rebecca is a very talented and humble luthier and her guitars were stunning, including the unboxing of Karlijn's new Urlacher. As I like to say to Kathy, I really couldn't help myself, what can I say?

She has been really easy to work with and it started with deciding on her Concert model with a sound port and cutaway. Then began the search for woods. I wanted something in the Rosewood family with a Redwood top. I like wood with character, I believe I asked her if she had any wood laying around that needed a special kind of person for and she headed for her stash.

This is what we came up with: This is South American Rosewood, not a true rosewood, but has the name and characteristics, and Tunnel 14 Redwood with some nice dark staining.

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Lovely palette. Looking forward to seeing this at BIG

South American rosewood, not a true rosewood... That looks like a set of Pau Ferro, aka Bolivian Rosewood, aka Iron Wood. Not a Dalbergia rosewood, but very similar to rosewoods in most respects. And it has an amazing variety of color and figure. This set looks gorgeous!
I've made two or three guitars with this wood, and it was a dream to build with. In my experience, it has tonal character similar to SE Asian Ebonies- metallic, sustaining, and complex. It's extremely hard and dense, and can blunt cutting tools pretty quickly; but it bends great, glues up perfectly, and looks amazing. It is almost non-porous, so it finishes beautifully. You're in for a real treat, Tom. Rebecca is going to hit it out of the park! Can't wait to see it in person.

Congrats on what appears to be an excellent choice of luthier and woods.

Thank you John and Kenny. I appreciate you checking it out.

Steve, funny thing you should mention bending. Rebecca may or may not be pleased with me for telling all our secrets, but to me it proves what a great person she is and how she can roll with the punches.

She too thought these sides being straight grained and perfectly quartered would bend well and did not even think about a problem.

In fact here is a quote from an email:

"I generally bend the sides before working on a back just in case something would go sideways (almost *never* happens) with the side bending. What could possibly go wrong with sides that are perfectly straight-grained and quartersawn??"

To shorten the story, she put a side into her standard heat blanket set up and bent the sides. When it came out, she saw it had cracked all to you know where. Of course she felt bad, thought she may have had a malfunction in her heat blanket. After a few days she took the other side to a well known luthier friend of hers whom she trusts and had him look. "No problem, I can bend that for you" were basically the words he used also anticipated no problem. He went through the process no issues, unwrapped it and the other side was cracked all to you know where too. I am pretty sure Rebecca felt a little better after that.

So something was going on with the set...I was disappointed as I really liked that back, but hey plan B brothers and sisters, plan B. Kathy says most of our lives is a plan B.

Too bad about the sides, but I have no doubt you and Rebecca will come up with a stellar Plan B replacement set of woods.

Looking forward to seeing and hearing this guitar at the BIG III!

This will turn into another success-story for both you and Rebecca.

...and it will be a cool-build, regardless of the wood substitution!

Hey Tom.....
Oh, this guitar is going to be dynamite. Sorry about the sides, but plan B, should rectify that, I'd guess. The colors in these woods seem to be right up Rebecca's alley from what I've seen in her previous builds, not to mention the tone that awaits!
Congrats on this new addition....looking forward to following the process.

And I for you to play it. She will be revealing it at B.I.G. III indeed.

Of this I have no doubt. As a good friend of hers, I am sure you are aware of the class with which this was handled! And I think plan B is better anyway.

Thank you sir. She is great with the colors, in fact I just complemented her on that very thing two days ago! You ought to come to San Antonio my friend and try it and many others out in person!

Alrighty then, on to Plan B it is. Making lemonade out of lemons, getting up again when knocked down, putting one foot in front of the other, turn the other cheek, or whatever other metaphor you have up your sleeves (see what I did there haha).

Rebecca was of course disappointed and happy to have only that one set of the mysterious cracking wood! So what does she do? She pulls out this beautiful set of Madagascar RW for my perusal. After 2 1/2 seconds of thorough contemplation and inner soul searching, I said yes to the dress, I mean set!

As I said, plan B's are often better than plan A's. This will still be great with the Tunnel 14 top as well. More choices coming up.

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Tom, that wood looks stunning and I can say from experience playing a redwood/indian Concert model from Rebecca that redwood works super well for her guitars. Congratulations, man

That’s a pretty great Plan B, Tom! It’s gonna be a nice one! Dave

Hey Tom,
I had a set of gorgeous MadRose sides crack during the bending process and I was so disappointed and about to turn them into BTU’s when Mary said … “whoa big fella. Why don’t you build a skinny guitar” but I resisted and said a 3” deep guitar would have a seriously anemic bass but being the trophy husband that I am, I humbly said those magic two words that every man (should) know … “yes dear.” In the end, she was right and the guitar turned out great, had a healthy bass and that guitar went on to sell several more “Skinny Slope D’s for us. Hopefully you can pass this story on to Rebecca and perhaps she will give it a try too.

Awe, so that is how the skinny slope D came about. I think my good friend Cigarfan may have one of those?

From the full explanation I got from Rebecca, I don't believe there was anything to salvage from the sides from either attempt at bending.

Yes, Dennis played the original SSD and fell in love with its tone and overall comfort but I don’t want to take words out of his mouth or veer your thread off course. Beautiful woods you’ve chosen BTW. I’ll look forward to following along.