Beau Hannam 12-fret 00
 

I'm excited that my first custom build is finally coming together! It's taken a while for various reasons, but the finish is in sight so I thought I'd document it here. Beau Hannam is an Australian luthier who now lives in Grand Junction, Colorado. He also creates amazing ukuleles as well.

I wanted a versatile smaller guitar, so went with his 00 model, more akin to the Gibson 00's than the slightly smaller Martins.

The specs for this one:
12-fret 00 (19.5" body length, upper bout 10.25", lower 14.75")
Slotted headstock
Short-scale 24.9"
1-3/4" nut, 2-1/4" bridge string spacing
No cutaway

Englemann spruce top
Tasmanian Blackwood back & sides
Ebony binding
African blackwood fingerboard with custom-designed inlays
Mahogany neck
Ebony pyramid bridge
Headstock facings still tbd, with custom MOP inlay
Rosewood/ebony rosette with custom inlay that wraps to fretboard
End graft: still tbd

Gold EVO frets
Custom-engraved Rodgers tuners
Schatten HFN (passive) pickup

I did the tuner and inlay design myself, using Adobe Illustrator. It allowed me to make a scale mock-up of what the final guitar would look like:
https://jfbenjamin.com/Hannam-build/...0guitar-02.jpg

After a visit to Beau's shop in Grand Junction, we looked at some wood and hashed out the details. I picked out a beautiful Englemann top, and we decided on Tasmanian Blackwood for the back & sides. The blackwood had to be ordered but I found a set I liked:
https://jfbenjamin.com/Hannam-build/ATW-NBL-Back-4.jpg
https://jfbenjamin.com/Hannam-build/sides2.jpg

Along with an African Blackwood fingerboard with a little character to it:
https://jfbenjamin.com/Hannam-build/...ingerboard.jpg

The wood set looked nice enough, but wet a bit to simulate under finish, wow!

https://jfbenjamin.com/Hannam-build/back%20wet2s.jpg
https://jfbenjamin.com/Hannam-build/side-wet-s.jpg

Great seeing more Tasmanian Timbers being used overseas!!!
That is a gorgeous looking set!!

Sweet! Beau was one of the six luthiers in the Luthiers for for a Cause project we did (https://www.luthiersforacause.org/). He is a joy to work with and has some elegant touches, like his sculpted heel.

Look forward to following this as I suspect I will do a 0 or 00 myself with him at some point. He previously built a very special super tenor uke for me that I recently rehomed only because I sold all my custom ukes but one (see my avatar for the keeper :-).

And he has a zainy sense of humor!

Congrats!

Fantastic looking guitar! Looking forward to more images.

I'm a fan of Australian blackwood and your set looks great.

That’s lovely!

That Tasmanian Blackwood is gorgeous! Wowsers!

Congratulations! It has to be fun working with Beau. I cannot wait to see him work his magic. Rodgers tuning machines are amazing too.

You've seen the back, but here it is being glued up old school:
https://jfbenjamin.com/Hannam-build/back-glued.jpg

With the (unfinished) back braces and "marriage strip" on:
https://jfbenjamin.com/Hannam-build/back-wbraces.jpg

And the (now laminated) sides in the mold, heel and tail blocks attached:
https://jfbenjamin.com/Hannam-build/side-mold2.jpg

This will be nice, congratulations. Blackwood makes a great sounding guitar and I'm sure this will be a winner. It's always interesting how these blackwood sets come alive when you wet them down to simulate a finish, the curl really pops in the photos.

What a lovely set of T. Blackwood, congrats!
This will be fun to follow.

Steve

At this point, Beau got busy with a couple charity projects (the aforementioned Luthiers for a Cause, as well as making a guitar/uke set to be sold for a charity of former president Jimmy Carter), and I made a decision that set things back a bit.

The standard Waverly 3-on-a-plate tuners we were going to use are nice and all, but... in for a penny, in for a pound. To make this build truly special I decided to get some custom Rodgers tuners. I made an engraving design to fit the rest of the theme of the guitar, and then we waited a few months for these to arrive:

https://jfbenjamin.com/Hannam-build/...Tuners%201.jpg

I think they turned out spectacularly!

Sweet!!!
 

The Tas. Blackwood is beautiful! I have had a couple guitars with back and sides of TB and they have been really nice...

Your design touches are cool and the custom tuners will carry the theme nicely!

Enjoy this in fine health and spirits!!!

Cheers

Paul

wow nice looking guitar. Keep the thread going so we can se to completion.