Hatcher's Studio 2021

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by TomB'sox

Do you think that plum wood, Bavarian plum wood, would make a red white and blue guitar?

I think it would make a fine Red, White, Blue and then some guitar!

Originally Posted by Jlhunt

I absolutley love the fret markers and the guitar is simply stunning. You mentioned you have some Sheoak sets. I recently acquired some beautiful figured Sheoak boards and am going to build with them. What has been your experience working with Sheoak?

Jim

Thanks Jim, I haven't made a guitar with it yet but it's reputation and my initial impression when cleaning it up is that it will tend more toward fundamentals but I also expect a good quick response with a little more overtones than Mahogany.

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

That plum will be nice looking.

Thanks! I was lucky to get these sets.

Originally Posted by ukejon

Love that style of fret marker. Great eye appeal.

Thanks ukejon! I like it a lot too! I don't know who did it first. I think Kostal called it Baskin fret markers.

Originally Posted by mikealpine

That Plumwood is gorgeous! Might nice with a rich cedar top, an we all know I think everything goes well with Redwood!

Cedar or Redwood would work very well with Plumwood. It strikes me that it will be versatile enough to handle a range of different tops.

As a matter of fact I just received a new billet of Western Red Cedar that might fit the bill quite well. It's old, perfectly quartered and sounds wonderful. This billet was hand cut and hand split so there isn't any run out.
Here it is:



It's 9" wide, 25" long and 6 1/2" thick. I started cleaning it up a bit today to get a good look and plan my attack. I'm afraid I didn't get too far with the scrub plane today because I'm so sore from shoveling snow all day yesterday.

One advantage of cleaning up with a plane is you get a good clean look at the colors in the wood:



For comparison here is what I was getting from the tri-color Sitka:

[Mark Hatcher]

I've pretty much finished the last steps and clean-up before finish starts on this 00 Woodsman:



I installed the frets on the 5,000+ yr old Bog Oak fretboard:



I love the subtle brown color when you look up close on the very old wood:



It's a perfect match for a Woodsman!

[Lonzo]

Hi Mark,
your woodsman looks like the essence of a guitar, just the fundamentals, old techniques, hardly any embelishments or bling, but old wood that looks like it’s old (in a good way of matured, ripe).. looking forward to seeing this one finished and to hear it hopefully.

[BrianM99]

Hi Lonzo - I echo your sentiments 100%, and that's why I ordered mine (which you see above). When I saw Mark's work on the earlier Woodsman builds, it just seemed to check all the boxes. I'm looking forward to playing my guitar in the near future and for many years to come.

[Treenewt]

Mark, I love seeing your posts of your work with handtools...those shots with the plane are wonderful! The character in that old wood...wow!

Also, that Woodsman is FIRE. I SOOO dig that design!

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by Lonzo

Hi Mark,
your woodsman looks like the essence of a guitar, just the fundamentals, old techniques, hardly any embelishments or bling, but old wood that looks like it’s old (in a good way of matured, ripe).. looking forward to seeing this one finished and to hear it hopefully.

Thanks Lonzo, I love making this Woodsman guitar. It is a big contrast to my other work in design, building technique, and concept. It’s proven to be a good seller. It sounds great and what I’ve learned making this one is influencing my other work.

I’m considering adding on to expand my Woodsman line. I’d like to add to this 00 model. I could do an 0 and a 000. Then I’d offer a Wodsmam, Woodsman and Wooodsman. OK I know the names would be stupid.

Originally Posted by BrianM99

Hi Lonzo - I echo your sentiments 100%, and that's why I ordered mine (which you see above). When I saw Mark's work on the earlier Woodsman builds, it just seemed to check all the boxes. I'm looking forward to playing my guitar in the near future and for many years to come.

I’m glad to hear that! I started putting finish on today.

Originally Posted by Treenewt

Mark, I love seeing your posts of your work with handtools...those shots with the plane are wonderful! The character in that old wood...wow!

Also, that Woodsman is FIRE. I SOOO dig that design!

Thanks Treenewt, I can tell you I love working with those hand tools!

Mark

[Lonzo]

..I know it is most probably a typo, but I like the idea of a “wodsmam” ;-)
seeing, that most all guitars are a “she” anyway, referred to as “her” ... in german the article is feminine... so why not a wodsmam?
Either way those are/will be cool.

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by Lonzo

..I know it is most probably a typo, but I like the idea of a “wodsmam” ;-)
seeing, that most all guitars are a “she” anyway, referred to as “her” ... in german the article is feminine... so why not a wodsmam?
Either way those are/will be cool.

It's true that guitars seem to always be referred to as feminine. I always just accepted that guitars were feminine, my models were Penelope, Josie, Greta, Piña, and Bella. About five years ago I was making a custom Josie and it was the first guitar I've made that struck me as having more of a masculine affect:



I think it's the dark and smooky look that does it as well as the sharper edges of the abalone inlays it had:



The masculine vs feminine thought stuck with me ever since. When I designed my Baritone I named the model Bacchus and you can see I carried the more masculine design aspects into this one:



I even started sharpening up some of the edges of the bridge design for this purpose:



When I started designing this retro 00 with the old woods and traditions and techniques I took the masculinity theme to the next level. Of course "The Woodsman" really was my way to confirm how my thinking worked around this model. Luckily, it connects with the folks that have been buying it!

Thanks,
Mark

[Lonzo]

Thanks for the elaborate answer !
I can see how different guitars, despite their feminine shape, also do have their own character and could well be seen as male either. That Josie being one of them for sure.
..and then I thought I knew your models Mark, but I hadn’t heard of a Bella so far... is that a discontinued one ?

Aah, just checked again.. Bella is a 4 string bass model on the base of the Bacchus... my oversight as I am not a bass player... sorry to cause confusion..

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by Lonzo

Thanks for the elaborate answer !
I can see how different guitars, despite their feminine shape, also do have their own character and could well be seen as male either. That Josie being one of them for sure.
..and then I thought I knew your models Mark, but I hadn’t heard of a Bella so far... is that a discontinued one ?

Aah, just checked again.. Bella is a 4 string bass model on the base of the Bacchus... my oversight as I am not a bass player... sorry to cause confusion..

That Bella was a fun build. I made it for Graham Maby who is the bass player for the Joe Jackson band and has toured and played with all kinds of bands from They Might Be Giants to Bon Jovi. It was ADI on Claro Walnut with a wedge, f holes, and great big planetary geared cello tuners:







It's not discontinued but, I'm glad I didn't try to make a living making acoustic bass guitars!

[Mark Hatcher]

I thought I'd write more about this Western Red Cedar billet:



I sourced this from the islands off British Columbia. This is from logs that have fallen off commercial lumber booms or barges and become driftwood that would of otherwise rotted in the ocean or on a beach somewhere.
The fella I deal with is a one man operation working off the grid and he has an eye and love for salvaging master grade tonewood. Here is a fun little YouTube of him selecting and hand splitting Cedar billets:



Gerry Chicalo loves this work and takes pride in salvaging and hand processing this wood, carefully selecting out the best for musical instruments. Splitting out this incredibly straight grained cedar by hand ensures the sound boards will be absolutely quartered without any run out.

I've found as I further my commitment to hand building that there are wood suppliers that take this same pride and passion in their work. There are tool makers that raise their passion to art. My goal is to find these individuals and small businesses that align with my goals and passion as a luthier and partner with them.

[Guitars44me]

Wow, Gerry works at TOP SPEED!

But seriously, this is cool indeed, and I am a believer in WRC!

"I've found as I further my commitment to hand building that there are wood suppliers that take this same pride and passion in their work. There are tool makers that raise their passion to art. My goal is to find these individuals and small businesses that align with my goals and passion as a luthier and partner with them."

These are the folks we want to support!

Salud

Paul

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by Guitars44me

Wow, Gerry works at TOP SPEED!

But seriously, this is cool indeed, and I am a believer in WRC!

"I've found as I further my commitment to hand building that there are wood suppliers that take this same pride and passion in their work. There are tool makers that raise their passion to art. My goal is to find these individuals and small businesses that align with my goals and passion as a luthier and partner with them."

These are the folks we want to support!

Salud

Paul

Thanks for commenting Paul. Gerry does work really fast
Mark

[Lonzo]

If you look at the log as it lies there on the beach it looks like many you have seen yourself. Then someone comes along not only knowing what kind of tree that is/was but also takes a little off here and there, in the right fashion of course and what you get to see is a surface that looks loke a really nice top even in the raw... is that trial and error or can you actually get clues as to which log to cut into and which one not ? Fascinating !

[Mark Hatcher]

Originally Posted by Lonzo

If you look at the log as it lies there on the beach it looks like many you have seen yourself. Then someone comes along not only knowing what kind of tree that is/was but also takes a little off here and there, in the right fashion of course and what you get to see is a surface that looks loke a really nice top even in the raw... is that trial and error or can you actually get clues as to which log to cut into and which one not ? Fascinating !

I think he has a locals advantage of knowing the shipping lanes and what woods are being logged in the area. Western Red Cedar is an easy one to identify. If you just crack a piece open and smell it and start thinking school pencils you know it's probably WRC. You can even hear it's WRC by the noise it makes when he splits it.

Happy New Year everyone!

I haven't posted on the Josie "Tree" guitar recently. I'm just doing final clean up on it now and thought some pictures of this one would be nice to ring in the new year!











Thanks for viewing!
Mark