Sexauer/'15
 

As 2/5/1 said, it is time to start a new thread!

I started 10 guitars in 2014, just .9 guitars less than my statistical average yearly output, as calculated a couple of years ago. It'll be about year before we see how this year goes (sorry), but I do feel quite optimistic at the moment. Last year was looking like a dog right up to the last 6 weeks or so, and then things really picked up. Part of it was the Founder's Choice award, I imagine, but not all of it. Things just got generally warmer, you might say the award was a sign of this more than the cause of it. Hard to know, really. Usually, when things seem to be working, you just don't rock the boat.

Today I started 2 guitars, my first of the new year. One is commissioned, the other is spec and more or less targeted toward Memphis. The spec one will be the Mini-D I threatened to make a few weeks ago when I suddenly made yet another L-00 instead. That's 4 consecutive L-00 guitars! The latest is done and in the curing stage of finish. I'll expect to hear it in about two weeks.

The Mini-D is at the stage of joined top, I'm not absolutely sure of anything else about it, though I am imagining it as Brazilian Rosewood. I have more BRW than I am likely to use in the time I have left at the bench, and it is What-Is-What-Am in the tonewood department, so I might as well use it. Probably 13 frets because it just works so well. Probably Martinesque.

The commissioned guitar is something more unusual for me . . . or anyone else. It will also be Martinesque in a way, which is to say conservative in appearance in the Martin way, but also a bit of a reach as it will have a carved back in Big Leaf Maple. It will be a slothead cutaway. I have joined the top (Martin Guhl AAA German spruce) and here it is:

http://mojoluthier.com/lpics15/Berger2/topjoining.jpg

It'll be great to see more of your builds this year, Bruce. They are always enjoyable. I hope 2015 is wildly successful!

In Bruce Speak...
 

JZ = Fully Carved
FT = Flattop
15 = 15" Lower Bout, 14-Frets to the Body
C = Cutaway

So it will be the first Sexauer JZ/2-15-C (Like your JB Asymmetric multi-scales, when you halved the multi-scale offset it became a JB/2).

:)

The rosette has been decided on on this, my first JZ/2-15-C (the customer is almost always right!). Here's the first ring ready to be glued. Some put them all in together, but I have lost too many tops when the walls between the rings fail, so I prefer to trade some efficiency for cleaner results. Now you can more easily make out how even the grain count is in this top, being pretty much my ideal for European Spruce.
http://mojoluthier.com/lpics15/Berger2/1stringa.jpg

Soming That Looks Familiar, But Something Different...
 

This custom commission will be a "hybrid" guitar combining many features of a traditionally styled acoustic flattop with a carved back similar to that used in an arched top. The body will be 14-fret, OM sized with a Venetian cutaway, but with a 000 24.9" short-scale, 1-3/4" nut, pyramid bridge and a slot head headstock. It will be made using a German Spruce top with curly, Bigleaf Maple back and sides and a Mahogany neck. The overall design aesthetic will be more historic in its language than modern.

I look forward to seeing Bruce bring it to life across these pages.

I made two rosettes today, though they are not quite flattened in these pics:

JZ/2 (still wet from washing off the HHG)
http://mojoluthier.com/lpics15/Berger2/3rdringa.jpg

Mini-D
http://mojoluthier.com/lpics15/247/rosette1.jpg

That last post failed to communicate IMO, so I took a couple more:

http://mojoluthier.com/lpics15/Berger2/3rdringb.jpg

http://mojoluthier.com/lpics15/247/rosette2.jpg

You are right. The second pair really shows them off. Beautiful work.

Bruce, both rosettes look great! I really like that they keep the traditional Martin look with a bit of a twist to set them apart.

Those rosettes look great Bruce!

I slotted the fingerboard this morning. It is some Madagascar Ebony I received about 6 months ago, though it has been in the country nearly 15 years, I was told. This Ebony is so black it's all I can do to take a picture of it!

http://mojoluthier.com/lpics15/Berger2/fudge1.jpg

This sounds like another exceptional instrument you're having made iim7. Can I ask you and Bruce what you expect the effect will be of having a carved back as compared to a "usual" build?

All the best, Berf

I will let Bruce speak for himself, but I suspect that we're a bit off the map or at least near the edge (where dragons lie). I basically trust Bruce's mastery as a luthier to find the voice of a guitar and find a way to make a top and back work well together in harmony. I like exploring and trying different things. Perhaps being in R&D for 30-years will do that.

Like all of Bruce's guitars I expect it to be responsive and be balanced with good presence in all registers. Where I am hoping it will differ from my existing guitars is:

1) in its timbre: I think it will be a more fundamental dominant guitar, but still retain some overtones and harmonic content with a firm, present bass; clear, warm midrange with thick, articulate trebles;

2) in its immediacy: The notes should develop rapidly with fast transients and punch.

3) in its sustain: A general tendency towards a rapid decay, letting the notes get out of the way but not to the extent that a archtop does retaining some level of sustain.

A few shots from Petaluma
 

Bruce preparing the gluing surfaces on brace stock...
http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0b3754ff.jpg

Laying out a top bracing pattern...
http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/...ps450e083b.jpg

So far there's not too much to alarm anyone. The tension is lower than my norm, but the changes I've made for that would be pretty hard to spot. This is the 2nd of three stages of bracing for the JZ/2 top:

http://mojoluthier.com/lpics15/Berger2/2ndtier.jpg