Well, all, I've been waiting very impatiently for a long while to get to start posting this. It's a bit of a longish story, so those who are only looking for the "graphic novel" version should skip on down...
I bought a Baranik CX with Brazilian and German Spruce 2 years ago from JasonA from the forum. Incredible guitar. My first luthier built that I'd even touched, let alone heard. And yeah, I was hooked.
Somewhere along the way I saw the RTaylor "tree" mahogany option (all sets are now sold I believe) and was really struck by the look and the story. I love mahogany guitars anyway - I had about that time completed a three year tour of various Taylors beginning with a 714 (EIR/cedar), then an all Koa GS, then a 914 coco/englemann, finally discovering an all mahogany 514 - which fit my musical needs and tastes perfectly.
I saw a picture of a tree mahogany that Mike Baranik had built sometime in the past (this picture)
and asked him about it. We discussed a mahogany guitar, and he told me he had some non-tree but nicely figured mahogany. But when I visited his shop in 2008 he pulled out a back (only) set of the tree, and showed me a sinker cedar top set, and we both looked at each other and it was settled. He looked for quite a while for a complementary side set of the 'tree', and ended up buying a set from Lance McCollum a few months before Lance's untimely death. Mike and Lance had shared a lot of time together and that added to the "story". Just this past summer he found a set of figured mahogany perfectly sized for the double sides - more serendipity.
The final piece of the story was the name - "Wanderer". Sailing vessels - stories, real ones, some racing, some personal memories - have been very important at various points in my life. Reading "Dove" - the Robin Lee Graham circumnavigation story, he noted Sterling Hayden's book "Wanderer" which was the name of the schooner Hayden took off with his kids in the 50s (another long story). The name fits this storied back and sides set as well as the sinker cedar, and "Wanderer" is now under construction.
At Healdsburg Mike and I agreed that the guitar would be one of his new "Meridian Concert" models - double sides, port, fully adjustable neck via a small hex head screw inset into the neck heel strap button, even more asymmetric body - some really great innovations, and he's at last getting the build started in his new shop in California.
I'll post some along the way pictures - Mike wanted to document this build more fully, as he didn't have a lot of pictures of the previous "tree" build.
Not all the specs are quite settled. Binding and purfling are still up in the air until we see how the colors look; the exact neck width and carve we're working on. I'm wanting something sort of between Mike's standard width and the narrow standard Taylor neck - we'll get there.
Thanks for looking. Questions welcome, answers given whether factual or not (!).
Phil
