Into the woods
Top wood wise, I have a very light right hand. Whilst cedar works well for that, and has a lovely warmth to it, I was concerned that it might lack definition/get a bit mushy in a baritone. Tom had some amazing redwood, which was mighty tempting, but he also spoke incredibly highly of Swiss moon spruce (naturally harvested by buzzing bees at the exact point a choir of angels hit a plagal cadence, no doubt…
). Having had great experiences with German spruce on my Kostal MD and on a fabulous Brazillian RW Wingert Model E (an incredible guitar which had haunted me for some time, has huge sentimental significance and I’m delighted to say has joined the stable a few months back), and Euro spruce on my OM, I was happy to follow Tom’s lead.
Hogmanay
Welcome to 2019!
Having owned a Taylor 510 (hog/englemann), Larrivee L05MT (all hog), Larrivee P03 (hog/sitka) and various mahogany Lowdens (S7, O10c and O12), I’ve always loved the dry woody growl and mid-range richness of ma-hogmanay. But I’m also a sucker for something with a bit more visual appeal. So fiddleback hog seemed to be the way forward. Tom had already made a stunning OM (005) in that for Ian, which I loved both the look and sound of:
Ian’s OM was made from one of two sister sets Tom had of a set fellow Somogyi apprentice Julian Gaffney used to make this beauty (his no 009) from:
And here’s the set we toyed with:
Short back and sides
Unfortunately, when it came down to it, the sides of that set wasn’t quite big enough to make a cutaway MD sized guitar.
So I spend a while doing this…
And then I remembered that several months previously Tom had posted a set on facebook, after he was nominated by luthier Ben Paldacci to share some of his favourite woods in his stash. It was breathtaking. And here it is!
And it had everyone guessing for aaaaaaages as to what it was.
Can you tell what it is yet? Fingers on buzzers please... (Shhhh….No telling for those already in the know/no cheating on Tom’s social media.)
(More pictures and clues to follow... eventually!)