Mark Hatcher's Studio 2017

[The Bard Rocks]

Yes, I know the company. I replaced 2 in 4 years on houses that I rehabbed. Their lower prices sold a lot of boxes for a while, but inspectors hate them - and with good reason.

[Guitars44me]

This Maple is certainly drool worthy!

Beautiful axe and I agree with Mike/Woody about your wonderful photography skills.

Thanks for sharing! And may your herds increase!

Cheers

Paul

[ukejon]

Can't wait to hear that maple beauty....looks fantastic.

[CaE]

Originally Posted by Mark Hatcher

Hey Chris,

Yeah, you're right. Installation took a bit longer than anticipated. The saw runs on 240v which I had available but, then the issues began. Seems the circuit board that I have in my shop is from a company that went out of business a while ago. Apparently, they had circuit breaker issues that stuck and caused a lot of fires. They weren't real forth coming with the data. They were burning down about 2,000 houses a year. Sooo I had other things to worry about for awhile.

Yesterday I got it up and running. It's a Grizzly 22" 5hp saw that I'll use exclusively for resawing and straight cuts. It works wonderfully!

Mark

Electricity is a scary thing when done wrong. I do a lot of electrical work around my shop and home. I tend to over do things- just in case.

I'm glad to hear you've sorted things out and that your new "toy" is in place. It's great having a bandsaw set up for resaw/straight cuts and another for curves. I had that set-up for a long time. This year I sold one of my saws and got a bridgeport milling machine. I miss having 2 bandsaws, but I love having the ability to make precision tooling in house.

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

Yes, I know the company. I replaced 2 in 4 years on houses that I rehabbed. Their lower prices sold a lot of boxes for a while, but inspectors hate them - and with good reason.

I wish this was pointed out early on, could have had it replaced before we bought

Originally Posted by Guitars44me

This Maple is certainly drool worthy!

Beautiful axe and I agree with Mike/Woody about your wonderful photography skills.

Thanks for sharing! And may your herds increase!

Cheers

Paul

Thanks Paul,

Wait till the finish hits!

Originally Posted by ukejon

Can't wait to hear that maple beauty....looks fantastic.

The tap tone worked out well when I was voicing it so I have high expectations.

Originally Posted by Chris Ensor

Electricity is a scary thing when done wrong. I do a lot of electrical work around my shop and home. I tend to over do things- just in case.

I'm glad to hear you've sorted things out and that your new "toy" is in place. It's great having a bandsaw set up for resaw/straight cuts and another for curves. I had that set-up for a long time. This year I sold one of my saws and got a bridgeport milling machine. I miss having 2 bandsaws, but I love having the ability to make precision tooling in house.

I've looked forward to getting this saw. I refuse to use a table saw as I don't work carefully enough to avoid being one of the 10,000 people a year they send to hospitals. It's a lot of fiddling around to set my table saw up for straight cutting, especially the way I normally have my saw set for curves.

[Mark Hatcher]

As a tone wood Redwood is a mixed bag. More than most woods Redwood varies from amazing to, well, crap. The opportunities to source really great Redwood are few so I don't pass it up when I can get the good stuff.
A couple months ago I was able to buy sets of legendary Carter woods and you'll see these on guitars that are scheduled on my upcoming build list.

Recently, I was able to buy some tunnel Redwood. This is from Southern Pacific Railroad's Siskiyou Summit Tunnel #14. You've likely heard of Tunnel #13 which was part of the same tunnels project that was built in the 1880’s using virgin Redwood timbers harvested in Southwestern Oregon. There are some fun stories that go along with this wood but, let me speak to a few of the things that make some of these timbers such great wood;

First, is simply that it is over 120 years old. It's fully matured tone wood and it sounds it but, it was great wood to begin with. The color and evenness of the straight grain is fabulous on this old growth wood;





The age also helped enhance the wonderful sheen even on the raw wood;



These tops were expertly cut and well quartered;



Thirty grain lines per inch is a good count. These tops come in over at seventy! This contributes to exceptional long grain stiffness;



Even with all of that stronger dark grain these tops are still lighter than an average Sitka top. Medullary grain lines or silking is a good sign of a well quartered top and their presents is an indicator for good cross grain stiffness;





I am making a few of these new sets available for custom orders so keep them in mind!



Thanks!

[islandguitar]

Those are really gorgeous, Mark! I love my LS Redwood and I can see the same properties in the Tunnel RW. Question.....how do they track the provenance for the Tunnel 13 and 14 Redwood? With so many years in between, do sellers have a way to certify this wood? Obviously the physical appearance tells you this wood is special, but beyond that?

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by islandguitar

Those are really gorgeous, Mark! I love my LS Redwood and I can see the same properties in the Tunnel RW. Question.....how do they track the provenance for the Tunnel 13 and 14 Redwood? With so many years in between, do sellers have a way to certify this wood? Obviously the physical appearance tells you this wood is special, but beyond that?

Thanks. That Lucky Strike is awesome wood and that was the wood that showed me how good Redwood actually could get. Given the one-time small scale of these Redwood offerings there just wouldn't be a formalized certification process. In the case of the tunnel woods, the source of the woods is small, so your dealing with the people that actually got the wood on site.

The Carter top sets are coded and numbered. I suppose someone along the way could forge the handwritten coding but, they would be hard pressed to find wood that would even begin to pass for the Carter woods, particularly the exceptional named trees.

[Diamondave]

That Redwood gave me goose bumps..!

[islandguitar]

Thank you, Mark! Very interesting info, I appreciate it!
As you may have guessed,I love following this special Redwood from these great sources!
Thanks again,
Fred

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by Diamondave

That Redwood gave me goose bumps..!

Me too!

Originally Posted by islandguitar

Thank you, Mark! Very interesting info, I appreciate it!
As you may have guessed,I love following this special Redwood from these great sources!
Thanks again,
Fred

You're welcome Fred. I currently have Redwood tops from four of the Carter named trees and these tunnel 14 tops. Additionally, I have a few wild figured tops. What I don't have are sinker tops. The ones I had I threw out. I've heard there are some great sinker tops out there but, unfortunately, that hasn't yet been my experience.
In any case, since I have the best Redwood collection that I'll probably ever have you would be welcome to visit my studio here in New Hampshire and we could do a serious compare and contrast of the different tops.

[islandguitar]

My thanks, Mark!!

[Mark Hatcher]

Back to this Maple Greta while it's in the finish process;



We selected the gold Schertler tuners for this guitar and are going with custom wood buttons. These tuner buttons are made from the same Macassar Ebony used for the trim in the guitar;



And a close up;



Thanks for viewing!

[Mark Hatcher]

The first gloss coats of finish are going on. The figure is starting to come alive!





Thanks for viewing!
Mark

[cigarfan]

Purdy, Purdy, Purdy. Pure eye candy!