My new custom 12 fret

[laocmo]

In the last 20 years I have owned two Martin HD-28VS 12 fretters and a CEO-5. Loved them all but lust for something different always led me to sell or trade them off. Been wanting another 12 fret for a long time. The Martins had a terrific sound. But I always felt I really needed a little less wallpaper peeling bass and a bit more mid and treble response for my style of playing. Finally had one built to my exact specs. Someone who is really into guitar acoustics told me a regular dread with round shoulders and a 12 fret neck is what I needed. They are somewhat hard to come by, except from a custom builder. Mainly I wanted a normal dreadnought length body and scale but in a 12 fret slotted head version with the width and thickness of the Martin VS. The Martin 12 fretters have an almost 21 inch long body. The regular dreads are 20 inches. That extra inch was very noticeable to me. The guitars always seemed rather large and I’m not a big person. Seems with a normal scale length, a dreadnought size body allows placing the bridge farther from the sound hole in the area of maximum belly vibration. That supposedly helps some aspect of the sound. I was advised to contact a West Pacific Rim top notch luthier by the name of Do Viet Dung. (In Viet Nam the last name is the given name. There are two different D's, the hard D is pronounced like the English D. The soft D as in Dung's name is pronounced as Dz.) Here are some links to Dzung. He is a member of the Guild of American Luthiers and his work is highly regarded by his customers that I contacted.

http://www.guitarbench.com/2009/11/1...s-terence-tan/

http://www.thanhcammusic.com/workshop.htm

http://www.thanhcammusic.com/guitar.htm

I ordered a guitar to the above specs and after some wait my guitar, photos below, finally arrived. It is all I expected it to be and then some. Perfect workmanship, very loud, and well balanced across all the strings. It’s the sound and size that I’ve been looking for. It’s all AAA grade Sitka and East Indian rosewood, with ebony fingerboard and bridge. The frets are stainless steel slightly wider and slightly taller than regular Martin frets. Really feels nice. To save a few bucks I chose Gotoh tuners over Waverly, they seem fine. His prices are very reasonable. And he can build you a guitar out of any rare wood you might have in mind with no limit on the beautiful Abalone inlay. All the bling you could ever want! Check him out.

[Bruce Sexauer]

A very interesting solution to the main problem presented by putting paddlehead tuners on a slothead.