2018 John Osthoff Small Jumbo (Brazilian Rosewood/Italian Spruce)

[dharwin]

I am taking delivery of my 5th Osthoff guitar this week and (as a sort of celebration) thought I would start a thread about the guitar. This is my first thread in the Custom Shop area so forgive me for any missing elements. For those of you that don't know, John Osthoff is a builder based in Becket, MA. He is a one man operation that builds extremely high quality guitars that sound truly amazing (side note: he is also a seriously nice guy). I first played an Osthoff while living in Nashville about 11 years ago and contacted John shortly thereafter about the prospect of having him build me a 12-string Auditorium Series model. That guitar (Ziricote/Adirondack) ended up being featured on his ads for the next several years and is just about the best 12-string I have ever heard or played. I subsequently had him build me a Jumbo, a Slope D and a Jumbo Baritone. Back when I had him build me a slope D (which is shown on his 2016 build thread here on the AGF) we were looking at sets of Brazilian and there was a set that I almost went with that never quite left my mind. Last year after I took delivery of my Osthoff Jumbo Baritone (which is probably my favorite Osthoff to date) I got to thinking about having John build me a Small Jumbo. When he sent me the shots of the available sets of Brazilian I saw this set pop back up and immediately decided to go with it. We decided on Italian Spruce for the top and to let most of the other elements fall into place as we started the build. In my opinion, one of the best parts about working with John on a build is that it truly is an interactive process. John loves to take suggestions from the client and is willing to try just about anything.

Here are a few shots of the set of Brazilian chosen for the back/sides:

[dharwin]

On this guitar we decided to do a Ryan style bevel so here is a shot of glued back and potential materials for the bevel:


We ended up going with a contrasting Brazilian rosewood for the bevel (and binding):


Here is another shot showing binding and butt wedge:


And yet another after the finish:

[dharwin]

John has a number of super cool rosettes in his arsenal but I have really come to love the "weave". This variation of the weave (which John calls the rope) was actually first used on my JS several years back. For this one we decided to use a combo of MOP and abalone.



Under finish:

[dharwin]

Since we were going with a Brazilian theme on this guitar we decided to use it just about everywhere. The fretboard, bridge, headstock overlay and underlay are all Brazilian.

Brazilian Rosewood Fretboard with a snowflake inlay (MOP and Abalone):


Bridge:


Bridge w/ the rough fossilized walrus ivory saddle:

[dharwin]

One thing that John has started doing over the last 18 months is making his own tuning buttons. I assume that this is a real pain in the rear but it is a really cool feature of his guitars.

In this shot John is showing the options for the tuners. The tuners on strings 1 and 2 are both Brazilian and string 3 is Madagascar:



We ended up going with the Madagascar to provide a nice contrast to the Brazilian headstock overlay:

[dharwin]

I'm sure you will agree that this guitar turned out to be a real beauty. It actually doesn't arrive until tomorrow but I will try to post some audio of it once it does.

[Nemoman]

That is simply a gorgeous guitar!

I've always loved John's straight string-pull headstock, and that's a beautiful example of it here.

Congrats on #5!

[Jamiejoon]

Stunning. Congrats!

[TomB'sox]

That is 100% beautiful in every single feature. WOW, one thing we know for sure, you won't be traveling out of the country with this one, BRW everywhere.

I have an Osthoff as well that I got from John at Woodstock 2016. He and his wife are super nice people. My Osthoff is also very pretty with an Italian Spruce top as well. Crazy back and side wood. Sounds fantastic as well.

Congrats again on a fantastic guitar.

[justonwo]

John's a great builder, no doubt.

[BrunoBlack]

Holy mackerel, that is a knockout! John is just a few miles from my house and I can’t believe I haven’t stopped in to meet him. He sure builds beautiful instruments.

[dharwin]

Thanks for all of the kind words everyone!

[WylzC]

Man, i'd like to have one of those.

[swiftz07]

Gorgeous build, thanks for sharing and congratulations!

Love the fossil ivory appointments!

[Steve Kinnaird]

Love, love that rosette. So nice.

Steve