Since accepting Vasu's commission we've become quite friendly and regularly chat about tonewood and guitars; due to Vasu's love of steel strung guitars the topic is often brought up. While I had built an OM style guitar last year for a friend I hadn't really had much interest in folk guitars since my teen years. That was until these continued conversations with Vasu which have inspired me to design a new steel string model ever so slightly larger than a Martin single 0, my favorite sized steel strung guitar.
I didn't have a time frame for when I'd build the first one, especially considering I'm working on the largest batch of instruments I've ever built in a single go, but while resawing a very old ziricote board I picked up locally that will be for a commission later this year I was left with an orphan back and side piece with each just thick enough for a back and side set if resawed within .5mm of final thickness. My curiosity got the best of me and despite the slightest blade drift or error at the bandsaw turning these boards into firewood I decided to give it a try. Luckily the sawing went better than expected (can't praise Laguna's resaw king blades enough) and I've decided to build the first of these new steel string models from ziricote and some hazelfichte I picked up from Rivolta in the Italian alps. As luck would have it, I also found a set of Waverly steel string machine heads purchased on a whim years ago that had been hidden away in a forgotten corner of my shop. If this turns out as well as I hope the second will be for Vasu but with some quite interesting wood choices and features.
