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  #46  
Old 04-20-2019, 10:17 AM
Dion James Dion James is offline
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Originally Posted by chippygreen View Post
Hi everyone, here are the rosette and end graft designs Michael shared with me today.

Since the guitar is not going to bear Michael's signature "leaf" art-deco headstock pattern but will have Jimmi's Japanese maple inlay instead, I did not have the advantage of a strong motif, as on a traditional Bashkin, to echo on the rosette (e.g. Michael's "torched wood" compass inlays) or the end graft (e.g. his beautiful interweaving geometric designs which remind me of the body of turn of the century Tiffany lamps).

Absent the anchoring motif, we explored the idea of borrowing the woods used in Jimmi's marquetry, koa and walnut, instead. Hence the ebony binding will have koa and walnut purfling, and the rosette will consist of two concentric circles, one of koa and one of walnut.

For the rosette, I asked Michael to think of a way to fit form to function with respect to the angled fingerboard (fan fret). Here are his suggestions.

Attachment 21624

For the end graft, I suggested we replicate the hallmark "semi-circle tab" at the top of Michael's headstock, by creating two semi-circles, one walnut and one koa. This design, it turns out, bears more than a passing resemblance to Japanese maple seeds and thus presented a very subtle coherence to the overall guitar design, considering Jimmi's wonderful work on the headstock, a "seed to tail" secret message, if you will, for one paying close attention. Here are Michael's proposals.

Attachment 21625

I'm going to take some time to think about these, and also how they impact the still-open back strip question, but I thought it might be interesting to share the thinking that has gone in to date as I continue to crowdsource everyone's incredibly valuable opinions!

As a final thought, while the individual designs are not as decorative as some of Michael's amazing guitars, I'm really grateful for how seriously Michael is taking my desire for a minimalist theme, and his willingness to depart from his more signature presentation. I do wonder whether the guitar will completely lose all secondary market value because it will hardly be recognizable as a Bashkin (visually speaking)...but if that was a real concern I probably wouldn't be doing a commission build, and the hope is that this one is a lifer anyway.


Loving this thread! Michael’s guitars are so tastefully executed.
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  #47  
Old 04-20-2019, 06:01 PM
SnowManSnow SnowManSnow is offline
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Man that is crazy cool
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  #48  
Old 04-20-2019, 06:53 PM
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You're gonna LOVE it, Bashkin's guitars have always been a favorite of mine...
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  #49  
Old 04-26-2019, 12:07 PM
chippygreen chippygreen is offline
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Default More Rosette Fun

I connected with Michael this week. He showed me a pencil sketch over the computer diagrams he had prepared of the rosette and shared that he was thinking of the design of shoji screens when he came up with the "segmented" rosette, and was interested in how shoji screens connect to one another, and started to pencil in some ideas of how that might look.

Michael_Shoji_Sketch.jpg

I really took to this idea, but tried to come at it a different way - whereas Michael was interested in the frontal orthographic projection of a shoji screen, i.e., how it appears when you stand in front of it, I found myself remembering my experience using shoji screen windows and doors during recent trips to Japan.

Often, these doors and windows are found in Japanese houses in configurations of four, with two panels each mounted on two separate tracks. The panels slide in front of each other to allow different levels of light or views, or can be positioned side by side (i.e. four astride, albeit on two tracks) for complete privacy.

Drawing inspiration from the plan (top down) view of shoji screen doors/windows, I wondered what it would be like to conceive of the rosette as a top view of four "sliding" arcs - two outer arcs of walnut and two inner arcs of koa. The "gaps" in between "arcs" - ordinarily represented by tracks in true doors, are represented by maple segments.

A concept drawing for this took the following form.

Bashkin_Shoji_Concept_2.jpg

Finding this to be worth exploring, I then added segments to and colored in one of Michael's other graphic designs to attempt to visualize this better.

Bashkin Shoji Concept 2 Color + SH Binding.jpg

The dark pencil line around the sound hole reflects another idea Michael suggested - to bind the inside of the sound hole. You can see he toyed with this idea in the mock-up to the right of the one I colored in. To see how this looks on a Taylor 900 series, click here.

Technically speaking, for the four arcs to line up to form a complete circle, each arc must correspond to a full quadrant of its corresponding concentric circle. I'm not sure we can achieve that in practice from an aesthetic perspective!

Nothing is final yet, but the good news is that with the incorporation of the maple "tracks" into the rosette design, and the shoji screen concept, I now have additional motifs to support the end graft design and back stripe design...
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  #50  
Old 04-26-2019, 12:28 PM
Nemoman Nemoman is offline
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Very cool collaboration and window into the thought process behind the rosette design.

Really looking forward to seeing the final outcome!
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  #51  
Old 04-26-2019, 12:35 PM
chippygreen chippygreen is offline
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On to the end graft and back stripe.

Thanks everyone for all the ideas and feedback on the PRW back - they really helped me advance my thinking on what I want to achieve for this guitar. After going back and forth between stripe/no stripe, and then focusing in on the idea of a small decorative motif instead of a full stripe, here is something I sketched to try to visualize how to tie the end graft and back stipe together.

The idea being explored here is to have the maple strip that forms the center of the end graft "hooks" over the bottom of the lower bout of the guitar to form a "tongue" on the lower back.

3-4 Tail View.jpg

You'll see I tried a few different variations of Michael's end graft pattern that I liked because it mimicked the shape of the maple seed. See post #45.

My initial sketch was more organic but I quickly felt it was not faithful to the rest of the design of the guitar. I therefore simplified it further in a quick sketch to the top left.

As a sketch, the diagram was not to scale and bugged me a lot because I knew the end graft was drawn way out of proportion to the guitar as a whole. So I drew a version to scale with specific measurements relative to the 4.5 inch tailblock depth of the Bashkin OM and here is what I came up with.

Full Scale End Graft Concept Drawing.jpg

If you go back to the first post you'll notice that the side wood has some figuring, which is depicted in the sketch lines above.

Also, in this rendering, the end graft is made of parallel lines, not converging ones. This could change but the primary constraint is to leave a sufficiently wide strip of maple at the bottom to form a meaningfully sized "tongue" that laps over the back of the guitar.

This needs further tweaking - the semicircles are not identically sized, and a design decision needs to be made whether the semicircles touch at the top or not.

However, my feeling right now is that this design is worth continued exploration. The "opening" Koa/Walnut semi circles not only echo the "sliding door" rosette, but the shape of the Japanese Maple seed. Likewise, the maple wood center strip runs round the back of the guitar and allows me to insert a small trapezoid at the base, which makes a strong color statement set against rosewood, while still being visually and geometrically tied out against the end graft.

A final idea might be to incorporate a maple heel cap as well as a maple semi circle to the top of the rear ebony headstock plate, as follows:

Rear View %22Maple Tree%22 - Maple Accents.jpg

Maybe that works, or not - it's a detail that we can figure out later.
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Fender MIJ Strat ('90) and 50s RW Tele ('19)
Martin 00-28c Spruce/BRW('67)
Martin M-36 (R) Sitka/EIR
Michaud O-R Cedar/Koa - New Build
Michaud J-R Sitka/MBW
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Last edited by chippygreen; 05-02-2019 at 07:41 PM.
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  #52  
Old 05-06-2019, 11:36 AM
Danieldaniel Danieldaniel is offline
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Wow. Nice build. I love the headstock design.

Jimmis work is spectacular. Her work on my Bashkin Placencia (which coincidentally is a fan fret Panamanian Rosewood guitar) still puts a smile on my face whenever I play the guitar.

Michael is a great guy. Enjoy the build.
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  #53  
Old 05-22-2019, 07:31 PM
chippygreen chippygreen is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Danieldaniel View Post
Wow. Nice build. I love the headstock design.

Jimmis work is spectacular. Her work on my Bashkin Placencia (which coincidentally is a fan fret Panamanian Rosewood guitar) still puts a smile on my face whenever I play the guitar.

Michael is a great guy. Enjoy the build.
Daniel, any chance we can see some pics? Instruments exist to give joy to both the player and with luck the listener, so I couldn't agree more!
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Fender MIJ Strat ('90) and 50s RW Tele ('19)
Martin 00-28c Spruce/BRW('67)
Martin M-36 (R) Sitka/EIR
Michaud O-R Cedar/Koa - New Build
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  #54  
Old 05-22-2019, 07:38 PM
chippygreen chippygreen is offline
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Default HS Inlay

Got this in the mail from Mr. Bashkin today...

Jimi_HS_Complete.jpg
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Bashkin 0M-MS Swiss Moon/PRW(build thread)
Bashkin GC-12 Sitka/Koa
Carter-Poulsen J-Model German Select Spruce/MacEb
Fender MIJ Strat ('90) and 50s RW Tele ('19)
Martin 00-28c Spruce/BRW('67)
Martin M-36 (R) Sitka/EIR
Michaud O-R Cedar/Koa - New Build
Michaud J-R Sitka/MBW
K. Yairi RF-120 Spruce/EIR
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  #55  
Old 05-22-2019, 08:23 PM
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This guitar is definitely going to be a real looker!
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  #56  
Old 05-22-2019, 08:27 PM
chippygreen chippygreen is offline
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Originally Posted by gitarro View Post
This guitar is definitely going to be a real looker!
Thank you - sure hope so!

BTW have read your sig line about a dozen times in various threads and it makes me pause and reflect every time. So true - thank you for the unknowing reminders you send to keep things in perspective!
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Bashkin 00-12 Adi/Hog
Bashkin 0M-MS Swiss Moon/PRW(build thread)
Bashkin GC-12 Sitka/Koa
Carter-Poulsen J-Model German Select Spruce/MacEb
Fender MIJ Strat ('90) and 50s RW Tele ('19)
Martin 00-28c Spruce/BRW('67)
Martin M-36 (R) Sitka/EIR
Michaud O-R Cedar/Koa - New Build
Michaud J-R Sitka/MBW
K. Yairi RF-120 Spruce/EIR
KoAloha KTM-25 Koa/Koa
Yamaha G-231 Cedar/Hog ('71)
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  #57  
Old 05-22-2019, 11:35 PM
gitarro gitarro is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chippygreen View Post
Thank you - sure hope so!

BTW have read your sig line about a dozen times in various threads and it makes me pause and reflect every time. So true - thank you for the unknowing reminders you send to keep things in perspective!
Thanks for that encouragement chippygreen - I am still trying to live up to it!
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  #58  
Old 05-23-2019, 02:08 AM
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Originally Posted by chippygreen View Post
Got this in the mail from Mr. Bashkin today...

Attachment 22894
Bee-u-tiful! I echo Daniel's comment, this will give you enjoyment every day for a long time. And that's just the inlay!

Col
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  #59  
Old 05-23-2019, 09:50 AM
jaymarsch jaymarsch is offline
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Originally Posted by colins View Post
Bee-u-tiful! I echo Daniel's comment, this will give you enjoyment every day for a long time. And that's just the inlay!

Col
And I'll keep echoing. Stunning and it will be so exciting to see it on the completed guitar. Thanks for sharing it.

Best,
Jayne
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  #60  
Old 07-11-2019, 03:20 PM
chippygreen chippygreen is offline
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Default Quiet for a while...

Been pretty busy at work and home, so haven't been able to post for a while, but my OM build is finally in full flight.

Some build pics...

Headstock & Fingerboard

Jimmi's completed headstock inlay against the ebony fingerboard blank. Michael offered me a mind-boggling 11 blanks to choose from, with a dazzling array of figuring and tonal variety.

In the end, we selected this board for a couple of reasons. The blank will provide the wood for the ebony binding around the headstock plate and the body. A stark black outline will pick out the ebony used for the branches of the Japanese maple, and offset the unconventional light colored headstock. The picture frame effect should lend weight and solidity to the head, while the crisp black ebony binding will provide continuity through the body.

Because we are going to echo the woods used in the headstock (maple, koa and walnut) in the rosette, end graft and back inlay, I ultimately preferred a fingerboard that is not too fanciful and which could potentially detract from those embellishments.



Sides

Panama Rosewood sides cut and ready to be set, waiting their turn alongside an eye-popping Ziricote set destined for another lucky owner.



A little water provides a preview of the finished grain. It is not highly ornate, but the dark figuring line lends visual interest and contributes to the overall impression of subtle understatement.



The cutaway "scoop" is separated (top right):



Florentine cutaway being molded:



And now all the three pieces are formed into the shape of Michael's distinctive OM mold:

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Bashkin 00-12 Adi/Hog
Bashkin 0M-MS Swiss Moon/PRW(build thread)
Bashkin GC-12 Sitka/Koa
Carter-Poulsen J-Model German Select Spruce/MacEb
Fender MIJ Strat ('90) and 50s RW Tele ('19)
Martin 00-28c Spruce/BRW('67)
Martin M-36 (R) Sitka/EIR
Michaud O-R Cedar/Koa - New Build
Michaud J-R Sitka/MBW
K. Yairi RF-120 Spruce/EIR
KoAloha KTM-25 Koa/Koa
Yamaha G-231 Cedar/Hog ('71)

Last edited by chippygreen; 10-11-2019 at 01:51 PM.
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