Quote:
Originally Posted by TomB'sox
This has been a fantastic story and has been very interesting to follow and your literary take on you posts have been quite interesting to read. But, at this point, I am beginning to wonder why you and Mark did not just sit down and design a guitar from scratch exactly the way you wanted it from the get go. I have to imagine you could find a wonderful set of Cocobolo and I imagine although do not want to speculate, the price difference at this point could not have been too great between the two. I remember this original build for Dennis and it was glorious to start with.
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That's a reasonable question, Tom. Before I answer, let me clarify: while Dennis did indeed own this instrument for some time, he did
not commission it. Last time we talked, he was still the happy owner of his Greta (also 13-fret, but Cedar over Black Walnut) and several other Hatchers.
I originally contacted Mark about lightening up the build, nothing more involved. My thinking was he could shave down the bracing; he suggested a re-top and refinish might better achieve the sound I wanted so that's why we started there and not from scratch. In our subsequent conversations exploring what this would involve, he generously offered to lighten the bracing
gratis. It was nevertheless clear that this would only partially achieve the response I wanted: a new top was the way to go.
This also gave him the chance to change some other things about the guitar. In anticipation of future neck resets, for example, Mark built a little dip into the fingerboard after the 15th fret because he was accommodating the original client's desire to never humidify any instruments. But since I do humidify my instruments and have some repertoire that requires playing past the 15th fret, straightening that neck angle is appealing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TomB'sox
Don't get me wrong, this is super cool, but at this point all you will have left of the original are the back and sides, rosette, bridge, neck?
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The bridge will probably be new because the neck angle is changing and I'm widening the saddle spacing by 1/16", but otherwise, yes. As Mark put it to me: it will be a "new guitar."