I loved working with her as she is a truly wonderful person and we got along very well.  I also liked that in describing what she wanted the guitar to sound like she used words more along the lines of “like water, or “crystal-like”.  Not the normal kind of tone-talk but actually it was perfect. I knew exactly what she meant.  She had wanted American woods and while I did use Red Spruce and some Florida Hurricane downed Cuban Mahogany I also talked her into rosewood for the appointments.  I love how it looks so I don’t feel too bad about that.

After a few delays I finally strung this little guy up the other night and it was everything I could have hoped for.  Right away it just melted out sound and just wanted to keep going.  It seems anything I play on it transitions easily to anything else, there is nothing fighting me on this guitar.  If I could keep it I would!  I’m excited to pass it on to Judith though, I feel like I was able to create the sound she was after and I look forward to hearing what she will do with her new guitar.

Here are some photos:

In terms of what I am working on currently there are a whole group of guitars in stages right now.  Some will be finished soon and I will dedicate a whole post to them alone but for now I want to focus on one guitar in particular I am working on and very excited about. 

This guitar is my model CLM shape and it is the first wedged body that I have done.  I am using a very nice set of Ziricote for the back and sides.  I love the slight asymmetry of the back plate, I think it is really beautiful.  For this guitar I am trying to keep it simple and classy, most of the woods will be dark ziricote and the only splashes of color will be a few restrained bursts of myrtle burl.  I did a guitar last year that combined those 2 woods and they worked wonderfully together, I wanted to revisit it for this instrument.

This guitar will have a Swiss spruce soundboard and a slothead headstock.  The neck will either be a stained mahogany or a natural walnut, I am not quite decided yet and will want to hear the braced soundboard before I make a full decision.  Progress has been slow but steady and everything has gone very well, I can’t wait to see it come together.  You can see in the photo of the rosette that the myrtle burl almost glows with depth, I expect that aspect to be heightened once the guitar is complete and the depth of saturation in the Ziricote offsets it.  Please enjoy the progress shots.

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This guitar was constructed from some really beautiful Tasmanian Blackwood that I found as a board at one of my favorite wood yards.  The piece was very well quartered and after cutting I was able to work with pieces that showed full silk on the back and sides as well as a deep curl and color.  It made for a really lovely and interesting surface, I got a great comment about it from the finisher which I though was great.  He sees a ton of beautiful guitars!

I am very pleased with how the guitar came out both visually and sonically.  I used the buttressed bracing for the neck block and was able to loosen up the upper bout a bit.  I have done this enough times now to be confident in the fact that it brings out some very nice complexity to the midrange and treble overtones.  In this guitar especially I was loving the overtones of chords and ringing notes in those registers.  The lower mid tones and the bass tones are nice and round and anchor the layered higher notes very well.  I built the guitar to be able to be played in a wide range of styles and I am very pleased with how it came out.  An earlier blog post showed some in progress shots and thoughts and that post is here.

So without too much more yapping from me here are some sound clips and a nice selection of photos:

sample 1 CL

sample 2 CL

sample 3 CL

• Red Spruce top
• Ziricote back, sides, fingerboard, bridge, headstock, and binding
• bevel cutaway with Ziricote overlay
• LL shape (14 1/4 lower bout, 19 3/4 length, 4 3/16 deep at the tail)
• double sides (walnut insides)
• Walnut neck with CF reinforcement and a 2 way truss rod
• slight V neck shape at the nut to a C shape at the (13 fret) body join
• Spalted tamarind rosette, backstrip, end graft
• curly Myrtle and Satinwood purflings
• Black and white ebony bridge pins and tuner buttons
• Fossil Walrus Ivory nut and saddle
• 25 5/8 scale length
• med. EVO fretwire
• Gold Gotoh open back tuning machines
• 1 3/4 nut width
• 2 5/16 string spacing at saddle
• slight V neck shape at the nut to a C shape at the (13 fret) body join
• Acrylic lacquer finish on the body and headstock, rubbed oil on the neck
• Cedar Creek fitted case

I built this thinking it would be an excellent fingerstyle guitar and having finished it I can say that I am am sure that it is.  It responds immediately and with a full voice to a very light touch and has the dynamic range to really bark when it is necessary.  I have enjoyed playing it myself and really enjoyed a few very accomplished players playing it for me and it works equally well at giving the player and the listener a very full experience.  I can also say that for the listener it has the power to command attention with its volume when it is called for.  It does respond well to a pick but to my ear is most suited to being played with fingers.  The bass is full, crisp, and deep and the trebles can be full or biting depending on your attack.  I had trouble recording the real range and richness of the sound in my short samples but it does give a sense of the instrument.

The guitar is available immediately and the price is $SOLD plus shipping.  Anyone is welcome to come by the shop to play it if interested.

Below are a few short sound clips (please ignore the sloppy playing) and a gallery of photos.  Enjoy!

sample 1 LL

sample 2 LL

sample 3 LL

I also have slightly changed my payment schedule.  I now will require that half of the balance of the guitar be paid when active work begins on the instrument instead of the whole balance being due upon completion.  I have found that almost everyone prefers to pay in installments and I have come to prefer having the security of the larger down payment before I commit the months of work to the guitar.  This is binding only for guitars ordered for 2012 delivery, all current commissioned instruments are held to the balance due upon completion.

I wrestled slightly with abandoning the $3000 base price, I know it is on the lower end for a handmade instrument but I liked being able to offer a high quality product in that gateway price range.  I hesitate to offer a bare-bones style instrument as a standard product but if you are very interested in a handmade guitar and the price is a real sticking point I would be happy to discuss the possibilities of a stripped down instrument.  Playability and tone would not be sacrificed of course but the presentation may be scaled back to only the necessities.

Hey Burton,

What can I say that some photos will not say better?

This little guitar sounds as good as it looks, nice crisp mahogany trebles and punchy mids and just enough bass to get a good growl going.  I am very pleased with how this turned out, even more so because the new owner is just as happy as I am.  We had a little back and forth about the pickguard  but after being initially for it, then not so sure once it came back with that beautiful sunburst, now I am back to liking it after looking at all of these photos.  this was a great project from start to finish and a great collaboration with an excited musician.  Who can ask for more?

See here for the new owners thoughts on this guitar and see here and here for more posts leading up to this final gallery – enjoy the photos!

Just back in the shop from a little field trip to the spray room deep in the bowels of Fort Point is a little prototype guitar that has been pushed to the back again and again when other priorities take over.  I finished some touch ups with the lacquer yesterday and will be able to buff it out in a few weeks.  It is a prototype spec guitar in an old shape and will be for sale once it has settled in comfortably.  It has a beautiful landscaped set of Ziricote for its back and sides with spalted tamarind appointments.  I couldn’t resist making some black and white ebony bridge pins and tuner buttons to go with them.  It is lightly built and I expect it to be a very responsive guitar.  I have waited a long time to hear it and I am excited it is so close!  Check the gallery below for some shots pre-buffing and some photos of the appointments.

Another item of note for me is the acquisition of 2 new machines which will expand greatly what I am able to do in the shop.  The first is a small milling machine made by the Johansson company.  It is the precursor to the more popular Clausing 8520 series.  I have roughly dated it to the 1950′s or so but have been having trouble pinpointing it too much closer than that.  Apart from a somewhat sloppy paint job and a few minor breaks it is in excellent working shape and  I cannot wait to get it up and running and have that precision tool as a working part of the shop.  I frequently borrow time on a friends milling machine and the ability to be able to make and modify small jigs and tooling is a dream.

The second new addition is a Crescent 20″ bandsaw which dates from the 30′s.  I think it is one of the most beautiful saws ever made and will be a huge improvement over the small saw I have been using.  My current little guy has served me very well but once the restoration is done the Crescent will be a superior machine in every way.  I am excited to make new guards for it and fancy it up a little bit.  Once I change out the bearings and get it tuned up it will be getting a nice makeover.  I was told it was found in a barn in New Hampshire and most of the barn had fallen down around it.  I’m not sure I believe it totally but I have no trouble repeating it!  You can see below that it may be somewhat true, the saw was in rough shape when I unloaded it here.  Once both machines are up and running in the shop I will dedicate a post to them.

I want to split these posts in 2 to keep some themes consistent so I will start with the project that has been monopolizing most of time for the past month.  I have been progressing well on constructing my 20th guitar, a commission for a very funny guy from close to where I grew up, in the Farmington Valley outside Hartford, CT.  We spent a pleasant afternoon last (2009) summer playing a few guitars and talking about what might come about and now the guitar from that session is coming along nicely.  We chose a smaller bodied guitar, My model CL, with a Lutz spruce top,  Australian Blackwood back and sides,  a bevelled cutaway and a buttressed neck system.  Progress has been coming along very well.  I have been documenting the entire thing on a forum I am a member of.  I imagine that photo series will make it here one day but for those interested in seeing it now the link is here.

Here are a few photos from progress so far.  I expect to have this ready for finish before Christmas and hope to have it back and off to Connecticut soon after the New Year.  It will be my third guitar using the CL model with the buttressed neck system and the bevel cutaway.  I was very pleased with each of the first two (one is my personal guitar) and I expect this one to be excellent as well.

I have also gotten some teaser photos of the sunburst guitar I am waiting to get back from finish and it looks great!  A post on that guitar is here.  I should have that back later this week and will post some photos when it is all strung up.  It has been a long wait for sure but based on the excellent color work that it appears to now have I think it was worth it.  We will see very soon……

This guitar will be getting a full color treatment with a classic Gibson style sunburst on the top, a dark tobacco stain on the back and sides and a black neck.  It will also have a vintage style pickguard to match all of the bright white accents which will tie the asymmetrical bridge shape back into the whole design.  I’m feeling a bit like it will be a shame to cover up the beautiful wood we chose for this little guy but I expect the sunburst and color will give it just the vibe it is asking for.  Also, a nice thing about the black neck is that it allows me to run my carbon fiber reinforcement rods all the way into the headstock.  You can see them below in the gallery photo of the headstock.  Usually with slothead style headstocks you have to stop them before the headstock joint but I much prefer to run them through and add strength to that specific area.

This will be the first full sunburst guitar I have done and I (and the soon to be owner!) am very excited to see it in its finished state.  There is some excellent silking in the Red Spruce top and nice curl in the mahogany.  The color on the back and sides should be deep and dark but light enough to just glimpse the visual interest in the figured mahogany beneath.

There is a repeated theme in the details of this guitar of a bar with one straight end and one rounded end.  I tried to pick it up in as many places as I could.  The end graft and 12th fret inlay are the most obvious but I found a few other places to include it also.  I may have a few more subtle references up my sleeve for the finished guitar.  Please check out the gallery and check back in a month or so for the final photos.