Kinnaird Tx wood guitar FINISHED PICS!!! VIDEO ADDED
 

Another guitar is coming down the pipeline for me. I recently fully retired and have now moved full time to the Lone Star State. To honor both of these events, I have asked Steve and Ryan to build a guitar with all Texas woods.

Although not the first guitar I have seen from this wood, it is pretty rare, that is a Mesquite back and sides. We are using dark Texas ebony for back strip and binding. The fretboard will also be Texas ebony. The innards are also Tx woods, local Sweet Bay (magnolia) to use as blocks as well as some Eastern Red Cedar for lining.

The neck will be Mesquite also with laminations of basswood, which also grows in Texas and in fact I have been informed that the champion Tx Basswood grows right in little ole' Nacogdoches. My request for them to go cut off a branch or two to use in the neck was denied however.

The rosette will be spalted Hackberry which I actually gave to them at B.I.G. for fun. It was a cutoff of some Hackberry that I had after building a floating shelf for the lovely Kathy and the colors were so cool I thought they might find a use for it, not expecting it to be in my guitar.

There will also be an inlay on the headstock of the famous Texas Bluebonnet done by Steve.

What about the top you might ask. Well it is Sitka from the Sitka forests of Texas, OK, well I lied, Sitka is not in Texas. However, this particular board was purchased in Texas, by Steve, from a shipyard near Galveston I think it was over 50 years ago. Steve found it at the back of a repair shop to use for ship masts. It had been there a long time before he bought it, so we are saying that since it has been in Texas for well over 50 years, it is officially Texas Sitka.

Ok pictures. First is the Mesquite back with dark Texas Ebony laying over it for the back strip. For those who have worked with Mesquite you can appreciate how hard it is to find a clean board like this.

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Bending the sides which I was told was not too easily done with the Mesquite.

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Just a quick peak at the Hackberry because I think it is so cool. Most people would have thrown it away, but it was so cool, I just saved it. I did not know if it could ever be used for anything.

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Tom, this should be a really fun build to watch coming together. What a nice way to commemorate your first year of retirement and full time residency in the Lone Star State with a guitar from two of Texas' best luthiers. Looking forward to following along the journey.

That Hackberry is awesome. Cool idea that will yield you a very unique guitar. Looking forward to watching the progress. Welcome to Texas on a full time basis!

Thank you Doug. The shelf was in the room that Gerry was using to show his amps in case you noticed that. It has so many colors in it!

Thank you for the welcome. Yes, the Hackberry was a major surprise, but a really good one. Thanks for following the thread also.

Yes!!! I've been really excited for this one to start. Great selections on materials and builders! I love my TX Ebony bridge on fingerboard on my 000-12 and messaged Ryan today to see if they had any more for my next build.

Side note...the fact that Steve is bending a side means you're a pretty special customer.

Congrats on your retirement and that hackberry is way cool!

I love “shopping local,” and your vision for this guitar is really great. The hackberry is really cool, and the Sitka story is as well. It will be fun to watch Steve and Ryan build this. Dave

Thanks, the bridge I picked out is really pretty with a sapwood component which is really sharp. In terms of bending the sides, Ryan used the word explosion which makes me think the picture is not showing the first set of sides that were bent!

Thanks, as a fellow Kinnaird brother fan, I am sure you know how exciting this is for me.

Thanks Dave. All the woods are really cool and all have a provenance that will make this guitar all that more special. I think the slight cheat on the Sitka is going to be OK. Well I know it is, cuz I get to set the rules on it lol!

Congratulations on the retirement and upcoming build. I love these builds where there's a grand vision or binding theme. Somehow makes them more special to follow and see how it comes together. I'll be following along with interest.

Joining the voices about the Hackberry - I think it's awesome. It looks more like the pelt of some exotic animal than a piece of wood.

Very cool theme guitar Tom. That mesquite is quite pretty under finish.
I have a small indirect part in this build so it pleases me to see this project underway for more reason than one.

Just to show how large mesquite trees can get my brother and I along with our wives were touring san antonio right after BIG and found several old mesquite trees on the grounds of an old Spanish mission

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Congrats on retiring, Tom! And glad to see you're right next door in Texas. I lived there for 8 childhood years and living in NW Louisiana ever since. We can be in TX in about 20 minutes and I still love the state.

The guitar is going to be fantastic, especially if Steve and Ryan are involved. Can't wait to see and hear it when it's finished!

You can't have that one, John! Those missions are Texas treasures. ;) Plenty of big mesquites on private property here, though when they get that big it's because someone loves them. It's probably a challenge to find straight grain in that wind-tortured species.

Stan

Thank you very much for checking out the thread. Yes, that Hackberry was a real neat surprise. I think I paid 30 bucks for the entire slab and surely got my money's worth out of it.

I agree on the guitar, all my guitars have a story and for me that makes them all the more special beyond the beauty and music they produce, they mean something to me emotionally.



Hello John, I am curious now as to your indirect part in this besides helping to mold Steve into the man he has become hahaha! That is really a big Mesquite! I can see the beauty of the wood that is inside in my minds eye.

Thank you very much neighbor. I know it will sound great with it being a Kinnaird, but I am excited to hear it. Mesquite is quite hard and glassy when sanded up so I expect something in the Rosewood class family for sound.

I want one! I'm a little disappointed about the Sitka though: why not a top of loblolly pine? (Just kidding - I'm sure old Sitka is the best choice, sound wise.) I can't wait for the next BIG, Tom, so I can get a chance to play this one.

Stan

Thanks Stan,

We talked about possible "pure" Texas tops and there were some possibilities, but in the end, there is some expense involved and I do need it to sound great as well. I think the Sitka has been here long enough to qualify as at least a resident of Tx like I am now. Who knows how long it had been in the back of that shipyard shop before a young and dapper Steve found it. The more I think about it now, I think it was in a Houston shipyard.

As an aside, here are some pics of the shelf that I got the Hackberry for, at least you can see the bottom and the front edge. The top is the prettiest, but no one can see it once it is up, was kind of disappointing to me, but Kathy would not let me mount it 4 feet off the floor just so it showed haha!!!

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And here is where I kind of got the Mesquite bug. I bought this slab for 40 bucks and started working it into a desk for myself. The black is epoxy to fill in a large defect and if you look close you can see my first bowtie. That was done all by hand as I do not have a table saw or router. I used a little Japanese flush cutting saw to freehand the bowtie and chisels to inlay it. I have to say, there is no glue and sawdust used on that!

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Back to the star of the thread. Here are the woods being used for the innards:


Sweet Bay heel and end block
Eastern Red Cedar lining
White Poplar strips to be laminated into an arm bevel block

Just a side note: White Poplar is also commonly known as Alamo Blanco, seems to fit the theme quite nicely!


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Sweet!
 

Congratulations on your retirement and move! Enjoy new Braunfels!!!

This will be a fun build to follow, and I enjoyed seeing your desk and shelf, too.

Very cool woods, and strictly top shelf builders!

Enjoy it throughly!

Paul

This will be an interesting build to follow! Congrats on your retirement.

[QUOTE=TomB'sox;6858943]

Hello John, I am curious now as to your indirect part in this besides helping to mold Steve into the man he has become hahaha! That is really a big Mesquite! I can see the beauty of the wood that is inside in my minds eye.

[/I QUOTE]

Hey Tom
I cannot take much credit (nor blame😇) for molding my brother. He’s gotten to be a superior individual some other way.
My indirect involvement in this project involved help in procurement.

Congrats, Tom all the way around. You know I love a good backstory behind a guitar!

I look forward to seeing this one come together and playing the finished product next BIG.

We had beautiful mesquite hardwood floors in our house in Bee Cave.

Thanks Paul, hopefully you can come sometime.

Thanks, I seem to have taken to retirement quite easily!

[QUOTE=j. Kinnaird;6859206]Procurement, got it...well thanks for whatever part of this you found.

Yes indeed, without a story they don't really take on a personality!

I love Mesquite. Just started a new project today for a hall tree with mesquite.

Today's pics. Gluing in all the required blocks!

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High tech pressure applicating device to glue in the rosette:

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Choices for the rosette were as follows...the hackberry surrounded by abalone or by dark tx ebony which will match the purfling. The reveal will come soon.

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A retirement guitar all Texas. Now that is really special! Congrats.

One has to wonder ... will you require auditioners to be Texans as well?

Love the woods. The Hackberry rosette will be really special. And all that Texas sweat from Steve and Ryan will make for some schweeet music from this one.

Tom, a bit more of this story: once when John was here visiting we drove 30 minutes north of town to a mom-n-pop hardwood yard. (One never knows what treasures might be found in such places.) It was an interesting enterprise, with a surprising variety of domestic and exotic species, all tucked away in a big tin barn. To add to the homey feel, their security was two huge Great Dane dogs. One in particular took to my brother and would amble over and lean his full weight against his legs. I think John felt obligated to buy something…anything—the pressure was on. At this trip we found several boards of Amazon rosewood, and this one large board of Mesquite. I really wanted one of us to snag the board, but I had grabbed the rosewood and my bank account already was fussing at me. So Brother John stepped up and got the board, some of which is now becoming your guitar.

He has the rest of this board at his North Carolina shop, should anyone else want to enjoy some “Texas Rosewood”. Just sayin’.

Steve

Texas Abalone?
 

Unless the abalone came from the coastal waters off Texas, I'm thinking you gotta go with the dark Texas Ebony! :D

Good story Bro. Well told!
I was trying to think how long ago that was. I think that board had been sitting in their warehouse for a pretty long time judging from the dust and add the years since our visit that board was from a tree cut a number of years ago. I believe its it's well seasoned