I'm thrilled to be working with Joel Teel of Two-Hands Guitar Company on my next newest addition, a beautiful quilted Maple and silky Sitka Spruce Concert/000 size guitar.
This will be my third trip down the custom build road with my two earlier journeys under the guidance of the brilliant Stephen Sheriff, Edwinson Guitars. It was through Steve that I "met" Joel (even if not yet personally, face-to-face), and was quickly enamored and amazed at the fabulous work he produced with his first couple builds (
Thing 1 and Thing 2). It was obvious that Joel has a gift. Conversations with Steve confirmed that Joel's guitars were not only visually built with precision beyond the skills of a first-time guitar builder, but they were equally or possibly even more sonically appealing. While I wasn't necessarily "looking" for a new guitar, I recognized I was definitely getting the itch after watching Joel's build threads.
As soon as I heard Joel was considering taking commissions, I reached out to him and started some preliminary conversations. It took a handful of email exchanges and I knew that I wanted to have him build my next guitar.
There were a few more email exchanges and Joel finally asked me what I was thinking about in terms of woods and style. Having owned a number of fabulous Maple guitars through the years, I had somehow emptied myself of all my Maple favorites, so I mentioned I'd like to add one back into my collection. Joel leaped at the suggestion and showed me some fabulous examples he had in his stash. So, for our opening of this thread, here are the woods we settled on.
We've progressed a little ways past the selection of woods, so I'll share some more in the next post.