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This is my mid-size guitar body which I completed two weeks ago. This one has:
Sinker Western Red Cedar top
Cocobolo back and sides
Honduran Mahogany neck
Macassar ebony fretboard (with Cocobolo binding), bridge, and heel cap
Cocobolo headplate, rosette ring, and end graft made from back plate offcuts.
The body is self-bound with offcuts from the side plates.
Curly Maple purfling on the top, sides, and back.

Endurovar finish brushed on.

The Cocobolo was a pain to glue, but it bent super easy on my bending iron.
I made the curly Maple purfling by ripping binding in half and sizing it to 0.090" square in cross section. It bent like a noodle. No cracking at all.
The Macassar Ebony I used for the bridge is surprisingly light (at least to me). The bridge weighs 21 grams which is comparable to bridges I make from Rosewood.
I think this may be the best sounding guitar I've built.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Cool top!

Jay, you sure do some nice work!

And I love the wood selections.

The curly maple purfs are a close runner up to abalone. I'm biased to curly maple's chatoyance among it's wood partners

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

I like it a lot. I got it from Aaron Hix. Interestingly, it is very stiff longitudinally, but has very low cross grain stiffness. The middle 6" or so is dead on quarter, but it goes off quarter by a fair amount by the time you get to the edges. No detrimental effect on the tone of the guitar at all. I think it might actually be a plus in that it makes the top more flexible at the edges.

I got the idea to do self-binding from photos you have posted in the past of guitars you have done that on. I thought it was a very elegant look and the idea to do it on one of my guitars has been rolling around in my head for a while.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Thanks!

I like how the curly maple purfling worked out too. I really like the look of curly maple or curly koa binding with dark back and sides wood, but since I decided to do self-binding, that was not an option for this one. Then it occurred to me to use curly maple for the purfling and there you go.

Btw, the curly maple binding I made the purfling from came from Felly Smith at Fiddleback Woodshack in Bend, OR. He sells beautiful stuff.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Cross grain stiffness has never been particularly important to me. Some of the good Shane lutz I’ve used you could practically roll it into a hoop, lol.

Using side off cuts is cheap and efficient use of wood and time…:)

That’s lovely, Jay!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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Ohhh that end wedge with the maple- fire! Stunning guitar.....

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Gorgeous! I would love to hear a sound clip!

This one is a stunner.

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https://www.instagram.com/fostinoguitars/
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Beautiful! I too really like the curly maple purfling with the self binding.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Beautiful!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Wow! That's all.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Love the wide maple purfling! It really frames the Bolo nicely!

Wish we would have drug it home after hours during the La Conner Show, we could have played with it over beers and whiskey….

M

Elegant. Self-bound is a detail that seems to be drifting over from the classical guitar side. I like it in both environments. Doesn't Romanillos do something similar?
The string paths between the nut and tuner posts are a nice touch.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Super nice!
Your finish looks great.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com