Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello all,

I've been a member here for a couple of years, but after two rounds of login issues (not complaining, just explaining), I'm into my third username. I've never posted any pics, but since I see people encouraged to do so, I thought I'd post.

This is my second guitar, finished back in Sept 07, but re-worked over the past few weeks. I took off the neck and bridge, and did a few adjustments. I thinned the perimeter of the top, and made a new bridge, leaving it a bit thicker than before (rosewood again, honduran, I believe). Those steps, plus reshooting the top (nitro from a can), which it needed as well (many small dings from the initial build / set-up, which I was glad to repair) required the disassembly. I also thinned the bridge plate, which I learned after the initial construction, I had left way too thick.

Well... the results were simply amazing. It's impossible to say to what degree the various changes affected the tone and volume (both of which were hugely improved!), but I am VERY happy with the results. I know that many people say to just move on, rather than rebuild a guitar. If I had only gotten marginal improvement, I would have only gained the experience of removing a bolt-on neck and a bridge plate. But in this case, the efforts were well worth the trouble.

All this to say that if you know you have several improvements you can make to an early build, it may in fact be worthwhile to address them. I now have a guitar that I enjoy playing and hearing played, as opposed to just another pretty guitar that sits in its case a lot of the time.

Here are a couple of pics. I hope the sizing is correct! It's bearclaw sitka (from the Zootman) and (surprisingly figured / striped) mahogany (from LMI). The back and sides were a little more busy than I would have chosen to go with this top, but I bought them sight unseen.

(Hmmm... having trouble uploading. Any suggestions?)
Enjoy!
Ken

_________________
Ken Mitchell
Durham, NC

Click in the <Browse> box at the bottom of the post screen, select an image file from your hard drive (must be smaller than 256K) Click on the file, click <Open> in the dialog box, click <Add the File> on the post page, wait for the file to load, and the screen to refresh, scroll down, click on <Place in Line>. Duck Soup!

If you use a PC, download "ImageResizer" from Microsoft Power Toys. It's free, and you can right click on a file or group of files, and it will resize them for you. My pictures when taken are usually around 2.5 - 3.0 MB, and after resizing using the Large selection, they are usually just smaller than 100KB.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Ken, the pics must be sized not to exceed a certain size limit...not sure what it is anymore, but I think it is under 250Kb. I use the most excellent free tool called Gimp. Originally developed under Linux, there are Windows versions. Once the image is loaded, then I use the scale tool to reduce the size (percentage wise) till it fits under the 250Kb limit.

http://www.gimp.org/

Mike

Yep, it's the size of the pics, evidently. I'll resize and try again.

(Login issues persist... I don't know why )

Ken

Email Lance....

I'm going to try to upload some adjusted pics. Hope they come through!

Ken

Wow... looks like they did in fact come through!

_________________
Ken Mitchell
Durham, NC

Yep, and that is a beautiful top. Nice guitar too.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thanks, Waddy. I appreciate it.

_________________
Ken Mitchell
Durham, NC