Great work, Louie! Bob to, of course, but I sort of take that for granted, or at the least as utterly normal.
I am getting into Ben's JB-15. He has a friend who bought my personal JB-15 (for 10 years) a few months ago, and Ben, not unreasonably, wants his to overshadow his friend Wayne's. This will be challenging, and I am thinking Ben will have to settle for merely distinctive. Ben's will have technically superior Brazilian, but I've never had prettier than Wayne's. Ben's will have abalone for the rosette and the top purfling, whereas Wayne's merely has a burst. Wayne's was for many years the tonal standard by which I judged all of my work, and I rarely made a better guitar, perhaps a quarter of the time by my ear, and I imagine that in this regard I may be able to give the nod to Ben's with only a little luck.
Here's Ben's rosette in a truly killer stiff 2003 Italian "Rivolta" top:
Closer:
1st tier of bracing going in:
