Beautiful curl! Love it!

Yeah - would be no backstrip for me either...a perfectly book-matched quilted maple needs no other adornment!

D

No back stripe


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I vote for no back stripe.

Thanks for the comments! The decision is in and there will not be a backstrip.
There are many decisions to be made in the process of building a guitar. I find short of actually being there, good photos can really aid in making these types of choices.

More trim
 

We've made some decisions on the trim. It is mostly Macassar Ebony but we're going to pull in some highly figured Claro Walnut for the rosette and maybe the head plate. The Walnut is being selected to stay close in color to the Macassar but will add a little variety of figure.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4165/3...936e71e2_c.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4192/3...39097e70_c.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4160/3...b9b1df8d_c.jpg

Thanks for viewing!
Mark

Moving Along
 

I've glued up the rosette;

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4165/3...31a62bfe_b.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4157/3...51c43817_b.jpg

We're avoiding using any rosewood on this guitar which is partly why the trim is walnut and Macassar Ebony. The other part of it is the colors of walnut and Macassar Ebony happen to work great with the Maple color.
I was having a tough time finding decent Macassar Ebony binding so I got in a board with the right figure and cut my own.
One big advantage of cutting your own binding is you can easily keep the binding sticks in consecutive order so when matched up properly on the guitar it adds a nice little touch of symmetry;

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4180/3...3719ac66_c.jpg

The top purfling will be black and maple lines with a little touch of walnut in the middle;

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4185/3...b0daf3e6_c.jpg

​Typically when I talk about the sound of the various back and side woods I say something along the lines that it goes from softer hardwoods, like mahogany, that tend to have a sweeter toned more fundamental effect where harder woods, like rosewood, sound more crystalline with more overtone highlights. Different woods generally fall in between there. However there is another area that this range doesn't cover. We can call it Rosewood and beyond. Ebony tends to be stiffer, heavier, and more reflective than most rosewoods so you get the highlights with more sustain because of the weight and often a deeper bass. At the same time, I believe, due to the surface reflectivity you get more of what some call "that piano like sound" or the more controversial term "reverb" (different from sustain).

So it just isn't a simple range of sound from Mahogany to Rosewood and it isn't a straight road from Mahogany to Ebony because different kinds of characteristics appear along the way. So I'm thinking the way to say it is woods generally go from Mahogany to rosewood and beyond!

I bring this up because after having some wonderful successes with ebony I have been expanding my inventory of "and beyond" woods.
Here are a couple recent additions. Pau Ferro is said to be between Rosewood and Ebony. It's also called Bolivian Rosewood and Santos Rosewood except it isn't rosewood as in no CITES restrictions, not an endangered wood;

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4197/3...c0f6a08b_b.jpg

Here is another that would be a great match for a nylon crossover;

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4201/3...b5173d9d_b.jpg

The "and beyond" doesn't stop at ebony though. There are other excellent woods that are still more stiff and heavier than ebony. I've had a number of sets of Katalox which is considerably harder than ebony. It rings like a bell or should I say it rings like bells because it's easy to find different tones depending on where you tap:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/724/23...1276cddb_c.jpg

I've had sets of this milk chocolate Katalox for a little while and am currently using parts from the original billet as trim on the Olivewood guitar that I have another thread going on.

Recently, I got this eye popping set of plum colored figured Katalox that I hope to entice someone with because I think it would make a gorgeous guitar!

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4197/3...c182b35e_b.jpg

Your wood showcasing posts are always a dangerous terrain ;).

Don't be scared :) !

Since I'm on the "and beyond" subject I shouldn't overlook the fact that Olivewood falls into this harder and heavier and stiffer than rosewood category as well;

https://c1.staticflickr.com/2/1520/2...18772729_c.jpg

Another aspect of working these woods is they all are suitable for bridges, fret boards and binding as well. Makes for some creative visual opportunities!

Katalox
 

Katalox - sound like a breakfast cereal or something. Maybe a medicine. But having seen some figured plum-colored sets and heard them ring, it is one of the woods on my radar. But it's not light. However, I have a strong back.

Katalox is an odd name. It's also called Mexican Royal Ebony however, it's not Ebony so to me the name sounds like it's trying to pass for something it's not.
I don't use that name because I believe Katalox has got nothing to apologize for. It's harder and less porous than most ebonies and it's ring tone puts them to shame. There were some guitar manufacturers that offered Katalox as an Ebony substitute in their sustainable woods offerings and it's reputation seemed to take a hit in some quarters leaving some people with the impression that it was something less than Ebony. Imagine that

More Woods
 

This past weekend I hosted the monthly meeting for the Granite State Luthiers group which is part of the NH Woodworkers Guild. Members of the New England Luthiers group were invited and attended as well.
I had a presentation about my work, work flow, generally, how I think about and build guitars. While showing some of the woods I work with I talked about a lot of new wood sets I got from a retiring luthier, the big Black Ebony log I got from a retiring cabinet maker, and the many woods and inlay materials I got from a retiring knife maker. It didn't take long for all of us to see a pattern forming here! Fact is, I think most builders working with natural products tend to accumulate their personal stash of favorites. I've been extremely lucky to get first crack at a number of folks' wonderful supplies as they move on and I hope to do them justice!

So since I'm on the subject here are a couple more new (to me) old sets. I got a number of old East Indian Rosewood sets. Most of the newer sets you find today have a purple cast to them. They work well and I like them just fine. These sets I just got are a much browner color that you just don't see much of these days;

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4225/3...eb45d4b6_b.jpg

I've been talking a lot about heavier than Rosewoods lately but, that is not to undermine how much I love a really lightweight guitar. In this vein I just got this wonderful set of Movingui:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4247/3...95a0a71f_b.jpg

Amazing figure and wonderful tap tone!

More Woods
 

Since I'm on the new wood purchases subject here a several more.

First to round out my Mahogany like woods I've got this nice Sapele set in.
It would fall into the hard mahogany category closer to typical Cuban;

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4200/3...a06bc883_b.jpg

Here is a crazy Black Walnut that looks a lot like Claro. I'm planning on this being my next spec in the Greta model. I don't currently have a built Greta, they are a bit harder to hold onto;

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4249/3...d7f5dcf9_b.jpg

And finally here is a nod to local woods. This is New Hampshire Red Spruce. Some would say ADI but we aren't in the Adirondacks. The colder weather here really shows in the dark grain lines;

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4199/3...2b2bc058_b.jpg

I've got several of these Red Spruce sets as well as actual ADI. One of these days I'll make an all New Hampshire woods guitar.

Shop Update
 

I've been busy doing a lot of posts on my new Olivewood guitar and haven't done many shop updates so I figured I'd try to do a little catch-up with some of the many other things I have going on.

I have done a large number of sound samples for my various guitars which are typically done as flat unedited sound presentations. There have been an increasing number of requests especially from more professional artists to present what my guitars sound like when they are more professionally recorded. In short, what can you do with one of those Hatcher guitars?

I recently put one of my spec parlor models up for sale here and when I asked Charlie Chronopoulos to help provide the sound sample we went to his sound studio to record. Charlie is a studio musician and was kind enough to accommodate me;



If you would like specifics on the equipment used for recording feel free to PM me