Hatcher's Studio '19 #2

[Lonzo]

.. lots of eye candy ahead

.. that's the way -aha, aha - I like it !

;o)

[Mark Hatcher]

Karen and I took a week off and went down to a little town on the Jersey shore we used to live in. We wanted a last taste of summer before it slipped away. We came back this past weekend and I spent Saturday cleaning up the shop and getting ready to host a Granite State Luthiers meeting. I did a talk and demos on guitar photography for the group and we went on into group discussion from there. We have good folks in this group, all with the same guitar building obsessions!

So back in the shop this morning. All rested up and I even have a clean shop! Better yet I just got this gorgeous billet of pommele Sapele with spalting and sapwood. It's 5 feet long and 2 inches thick. It goes from about 12 inches to 14 inches wide. Here are a couple pictures of the dry rough cut wood:



Here is a close up of the deep uniform figure:



The job now is to strategize the best way to cut this up.

Thanks for viewing!
Mark

[Nemoman]

That's an outrageous chunk of wood!

Excited to see it once you work your magic with it!

[Halcyon/Tinker]

Nice plank!

[The Bard Rocks]

Cool. Why does something like this always make me want to own a piece of it?

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by Nemoman

That's an outrageous chunk of wood!

Excited to see it once you work your magic with it!

Thanks Nemoman, I’d like to get three guitar back and side sets from it. I’m hoping to also get the necks for those three guitars. There will be plenty left over for headstock laminates, binding, maybe purfling, heel caps, endgrafts, tuner buttons, and inlays

Originally Posted by Halcyon/Tinker

Nice plank!

Thanks! It was a happy find.

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

Cool. Why does something like this always make me want to own a piece of it?

Funny isn’t it? When I see something like this I can’t wait to cut it into pieces!

Thanks for commenting
Mark

[Mark Hatcher]

When I got this pommele Sapele board I knew there were some checks in it so I would only get a limited number of guitar tops and backs. This is a species I want to build up a good sampling of. It is a bit heavier than Mahogany and very stiff and can make a good neck wood, even with all that figure. Plus the figure is tight enough that it will make great headstock overlays, inlays, rosettes, even binding.

Sound wise Sapele has the articulation of Mahogany and a little more balance with stronger midrange and sustain.

So here are the sets I got from it:









I was really happy to get this last set. It has the blue spalted sapwood which would really show under finish along with that tight pommele figure:





Here is a case where I am very inspired to build an instrument around this back and side set. I think about how in some of the Amboyna Burl pieces I have been collecting (hoarding) there are occasional ones that have that tri-color look this back and side set has:



That red in the burl may look a little too strawberry colored but that calms down pretty quickly and the Sapele get more red under finish and with a little time. I think about that headstock I did with the recent Koa Piña:



This headstock and tuner buttons done in the tri-color Amboyna burl would be wonderful with that back and side set.

I would do a pommele Sapele neck and for the binding I would use the light sapwood for the back and the regular red Sapele around the top to contract the side sapwood.

If my eyes haven't fallen out yet I'll dress the whole guitar with thin purfling lines of blue Paua abalone!

See what can happen to ya when you hang around wood too much!

Well, that settles it. I'm trying to get into the Woodstock show again next year and if you see me there you will likely see this guitar on my table.

Thanks for sharing my dream!
Mark

[Lonzo]

Hi Mark,
I particularly like the set with the sapwood visually... as probably many... does it tap differently than the ones without? If yes, to what end?
In other words: what is your opinion on the influence of the sapwood on the tone, particularly in the back? (assuming the portion in the sides is not as “contributing” ..)

Thanks for sharing your dream with us

Aaah.. and is that a Penelope shape drawn there ? ..or a Piña ?

[Mark Hatcher]

Thanks Lonzo,

I don’t see a difference in the three ways I checked it:

When I check with my thumb nail it seems the same hardness

When I flex the board across the grain it doesn’t appear to give more

When I balance the board it balances in the middle.

Now that may change as I thin the back after I cut the body profile. If it does change I’ll accommodate that with how it is thinned.

Finally, when I voice the back I can do any fine adjustment with the braces which is one of the advantages of doing the lattice style braces I use.

Yes, that is a Pina profile drawn on there.

Mark

[Lonzo]

..for the detailed answer. So it doesn’t hurt a back to sound and look good at the same time

Originally Posted by Mark Hatcher

Thanks Lonzo,

I don’t see a difference in the three ways I checked it:

When I check with my thumb nail it seems the same hardness

When I flex the board across the grain it doesn’t appear to give more

When I balance the board it balances in the middle.

Now that may change as I thin the back after I cut the body profile. If it does change I’ll accommodate that with how it is thinned.

Finally, when I voice the back I can do any fine adjustment with the braces which is one of the advantages of doing the lattice style braces I use.

Yes, that is a Pina profile drawn on there.

Mark

[Mark Hatcher]

"You can't buy woods like that anymore." I came across a short article on H.L. Wild & Co. They started up in 1876 and were in business for about 100yrs. They were the only guitar builder supplier in New York City for a long long time. Benedetto bought the spruce for his first real guitar in 1968 there. H.L. Wild was the main supplier for D'Angelico right from the start as well as many others.

Here is a little article from the June 1972 edition of the New York Magazine:



On the east coast, at least, when people say "You can't buy woods like that anymore" this is probably where the wood they are talking about came from.

A couple things I find guitar builders have in common are one: a great love and appreciation for wood and two: they are wood hoarders. Many of the builders that bought woods from H.L.Wild & Co are today retired or retiring.
So I say "Well, in fact, you can buy wood like that anymore!"
Except now it has been seasoning in a luthiers' wood locker for 45 years or more.

Here are six beautiful Amazon Rosewood sets I came across recently:



and a little stack of very nice, very black Ebony fingerboards that "you can't get anymore";



If you have a H.L. Wild & Co. stories I'd love to hear them. I want to do my best to honor their memory and woods, doing what I do as a guitar maker.

[Glenn23]

I bought a set of wood, for the first acoustic guitar I ever built, from H L Wild! I remember climbing down into their musty basement and picking out sets from stacks that looked like they hadn’t been touched in years. I was led down there by whom I must assume was George Wild himself. My father had given me a slim book titled “Make Your Own Spanish Guitar” in the sixties. At that time the 32 pages of that book was probably the only published guide to guitar building in existence. It had a sticker for H L Wild inside it’s back cover. I held onto that book for a decade before I started to build. I still have it somewhere. That first guitar I built is long gone!
Thanks Mark, for bringing back those memories!

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by Glenn23

I bought a set of wood, for the first acoustic guitar I ever built, from H L Wild! I remember climbing down into their musty basement and picking out sets from stacks that looked like they hadn’t been touched in years. I was led down there by whom I must assume was George Wild himself. My father had given me a slim book titled “Make Your Own Spanish Guitar” in the sixties. At that time the 32 pages of that book was probably the only published guide to guitar building in existence. It had a sticker for H L Wild inside it’s back cover. I held onto that book for a decade before I started to build. I still have it somewhere. That first guitar I built is long gone!
Thanks Mark, for bringing back those memories!

Thanks for sharing that, it was the kind of story I was hoping to hear! I’d love to get hold of one of those little books. I’ve been combing the internet but mostly am seeing scroll saw patterns that they had a reputation for.

[Glenn23]

I found the full text of the book printed online. It was actually easier to find online than to find my print copy (I know I saw it somewhere not too long ago). My mental “search engine” has always been much more hit or miss than Google, and it’s not getting any better with age.
A search for “make your own spanish guitar book” should turn up the internet archive of it. It doesn’t have the H. L. Wild sticker, so I suspect that was something Wild was slapping on books to try and drive some business.
The author claims it to be the first printed description on how to build a guitar.

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by Glenn23

I found the full text of the book printed online. It was actually easier to find online than to find my print copy (I know I saw it somewhere not too long ago). My mental “search engine” has always been much more hit or miss than Google, and it’s not getting any better with age.
A search for “make your own spanish guitar book” should turn up the internet archive of it. It doesn’t have the H. L. Wild sticker, so I suspect that was something Wild was slapping on books to try and drive some business.
The author claims it to be the first printed description on how to build a guitar.

Got one! I found it on Etsy and it even has the H.L. Wild sticker.

Thanks!
Mark