Lattanze 2019
 

It’s easy to ramble when posting on forums so I’ll try and keep this concise. The little guy will be two in August which means I can count on one hand how many threads I’ve started since then. He keeps me busy.

I displayed at the Artisan guitar show back in April which marked my first show with my own booth. In shows past, I piggybacked on my mentor Bill Comins in his booth. The show was great and I even took a few orders as a result.

One of the orders came from a friend of mine who was at the show and asked me to take him around the show to play some of my favorite luthiers work. Some of them are regularly seen on here. Most notably is Bruce Sexauer who was gracious enough to entertain our questions and have a chat with us. I’ve been a fan of his work ever since Bob Berger came to Bill and I’s shop to show us his maple flat top/arch back guitar and then later with his Brazilian 0-C, two guitars that are surely some of the finest I’ve ever played.

As my friend and I talked about building him a guitar we both were excited about a guitar inspired by Bruce’s work. I’ve never built a guitar “in the air” or without molds but Bruce’s “living guitar” philosophy intrigued me so I agreed to give it a shot!

My friend, Scott is his name, wanted 14 frets to the joint using my 00 shape. We talked about using a QS set of Jatoba that I had in the shop which seemed right down the Sexauer alley but this waterfall Sapele kept calling out to Scott... As I type, I’ve hot hide glued tentelones or “peones” as Bruce calls them to one side of the instrument. Not a bad result, room for improvement moving forward. It takes much much longer than the kerfing method but at least you get to repeat “tentelones” in your worst Spanish accent as you work.


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Some renderings of the guitar with more homage to Bruce in the headstock. The rendering features cocobolo but we're using bloodwood in its place.

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That is really cool and there is something very appealing to how Bruce builds with no molds. He has a freedom there for each guitar to be an individual beyond just the appointments. I would think once one gets use to that, would actually seem easier to me.

Glad you are doing this build thread on the 14 fret 00. What's the scale length going to be and what are the box dimensions on your 00 shape?

Really nice work, Anthony. I remember how impressed I was with the guitar you brought to Woodstock a couple of years ago. It sounded like your hundredth rather than a single digit....Robert

This will be fun
 

I am fan of Bruce Sexauer and will enjoy this thread!

Thanks for sharing!!!

Paul

Time will tell! I'm sure a few decades of honing his skill ables him to move quickly. A little more patience on my part is needed to make the tentelone glue up cleaner. I should get the other side bent and hopefully glued up over the weekend.

Lattanze 2019
 

The scale length is 24.9". The size of the box might be more of a Gibson L-00 than Martin. It's hard for me to keep all of those sizes in order with all of the changes Martin does.

Lower bout - 14.3"
Waist - 8.5"
Upper bout - 10.1"
Length of box - 19.2"
Sound hole 3.75"

Thank you! I learned a lot with that guitar and it still sounds great. Though, I might re-top it one day. My first guitar I really pushed it on the thin side and it's already showing some deformity. I'm building another one of that shape next on the docket for a soldier in Afghanistan. Here's the back. Attachment 23714

He's the man! If I could build flat tops like him and archtops like Bill Comins...[emoji848]

Very cool!

I've been at a Bluegrass Festival for most of the last week. How pleasant to return and discover this thread! I am more than happy to answer any pertinent questions, Anthony.

Thanks Bruce! Your presence on these forums over the years has left a lot of information to sift through so thank you for that as well. I’ve had loads of questions that I found (or at least think I’ve found) answers to in your threads. I still have lots of questions about your voicing process but my gut tells me the answers lie in your intuition and probably not well answered in text. Here’s a question, what’s in your secret sauce?

I do have a secret sauce! It puts my DNA in every guitar I make, literally. And, as you would guess, it is something unique to myself that I can tel you about but you cannot duplicate EVER. You, however, also have your own secret sauce and it will probably work just as well as mine. When my daughter Laurelyn built her guitar in my shop last summer she refused to use her own secret sauce, preferring to use a synthetic sauce she mixed up using water and dish soap as wetsanding lubricant instead. The Italian violin supply houses will actually sell secret sauce BUT it is somebody else’s DNA, and you have to draw the line somewhere. I do recommend you use your own saliva when wet sanding your finish.

I do plan on trying an oil varnish without filling the pores. The obvious dilemma I face is my DNA has all of those Mediterranean oils in it already.