Official Luthiers Forum!

Yeh RIGHT KIMMY! I'll bet you'd be the first one peepin' in!

Wow, such positive remarks for what seems like "obscure" combos. Now I
am really inspired!

I also would like to see pictures of various combinations if possible. The
redwood in the thread a little while back with rosewood looked gorgeous,
I'm excited to see a coco mix!

I have not used Redwood, so I can't help with that. However, I would like to know the inside joke about S***a and D*********t. If it is too nasty to post, email me. James Burkett38760.1872800926

It's a bit of a British thing James. Many of us over here verge on the belief that Sitka and Dreadnoughts are abominations . You have to search far and wide to find a flat picker over here. And, we just love our Euro spruce! Lance knows, from previous threads, that the early guitars I built with Sitka, I've since retopped with Euro.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Colin, for the newbie's sake, what don't you like about silky sitka ?

Yah, I don't get that at all...I love sitka.
It has plenty of toughness, and great headroom and punch.
It's highly under-valued if you ask me.
I have this amazing set of sitka sitting in my stack of tops that is meant for a personal BRW guitar someday.
Granted, Euro spruce is nice, but I think sitka has everything I look for, and is in plentiful supply.
I consider good old Red spruce to be the best, but Sitka is a great alternative.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Colin, Sounds like Sitka left a bad taste in your mouth. My first batch of sitka direct from a woodcutter was bad. Floppiest stuff, just felt rubbery across grain.

Then I purchased some from Timbertone where Ed Dicks worked. Oh golly gee, it was incredible. So incredible I ordered several times and have a wonderful stock.

So, like anything we can have a bad experience and think all is like that. Joining up a top of Sitka in the last couple days, it is a really good top for the OLF teambuild #2.

Handling that top, it is everything one looks for in a top, beauty, stiffness, has that wonderful ring and sound transmission. Can't wait to get it on a guitar.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Maybe we could fix that "lack of flat pickers" thing. We could ship a few flat pickers over there and let them infiltrate the guitar community. Could be a good thing.    Don't worry, they'll bring plenty of their own guitars.

I've got nothing against Sitka per se, it's probably very good at what it does, just doesn't suit my or (to over-generalise) the British style of playing and building. Besides, we have access to great Euro spruce, which does everything we want that bit better. If I wanted to build a flatpickers guitar I'd probably get some sitka, but the chances of me doing that are between nothing and zero, well probably less than that.

I do have a set of Shane's Lutz, which looks promising, and may end up on a baritone (if Dave will advise me).

As to sending a load of flatpickers over here, they wouldn't survive 5 minutes in a British folk club, the Real Ale would finish them off!

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Real Ale? Ok, I can take your dissing North American wood, guitars and playing styles, but got to draw the line at ale. I've seen more than one Brit succumb to a few American microbrews. That British stuff is just weak hop tea.

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Scott Thompson
Port Townsend,WA

"In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room"
-Billy Bragg

Scott, what country do you think most of those 'American' microbrew recipes come from? Answers: the UK, or Belgium. The brits haven't the first clue what the hell to do with a Lager, but they do know their (strong) Ales.

The original styles, but not the recipes. British bitters, porters, and stouts average 3.5 - 4% ABV and IPA at around 3.5 to 5.5 percent ABV. (U.S IPAs are 5.5% and up) Delicious and quaffable, but not strong.

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Scott Thompson
Port Townsend,WA

"In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room"
-Billy Bragg

Oh, up in Northern England/Scotland you've got plenty of dark, strong brews over the 5.5% mark. Then again, I tend to go for the trappist beers, since they're closer to home, and really pretty cheap. I've got a Dutch ale in the fridge right now (limited run from Grolsch) that's really quite nice, and clocks in at almost 12%. Not that you'd noticed, but it's a very, very nice beer.

I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of American beers (y'know, other than coors, miller, bud) when I was over last year. You only get the lousy ones over here, and last time I was over I was too young, by US standards, to taste anything...met a few amateur (and not-so-amateur) brewers that mostly cursed me for the fact 500ml Grolsch flip-top bottles (apparently much sought after) filled with actual beer cost me less (about 50 cents) than the bottles go for stateside. And it's nice beer!

So, uh, yeah. Redwood, eh?

You guys were making me thirsty there and it's been over 3 years since i drank any so please , please please guys go to your PMs when it coms to brew, have mercy for the thirsty Bear

Mattia, your a man after my own heart AND making me jealeous. Have one of those monk beer for me.

Oh, yeah. Redwood.....nice stuff.

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Scott Thompson
Port Townsend,WA

"In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room"
-Billy Bragg

Redwood guys, Redwood, Pleaaaaase!!!!

[QUOTE=Colin S]
If I wanted to build a flatpickers guitar I'd probably get some sitka, but the chances of me doing that are between nothing and zero, well probably less than that.

Colin[/QUOTE]

Oh, bad luck! Colin, I was this close to ordering a Sitka dread from you.

Guess I'll have to see if Russell is booked up, or maybe Dave?

SteveSteve Kinnaird38760.9524884259

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

I knew I liked you, Colin.

American microbrew ale is distinctive in style; not what Brits are expecting in
an ale. British ales are much maltier; Brits would likely think American pale
ale (for example) to be all hops. I personally like the American style, too.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Microbrewed redwood?????

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I made a redwood/mahogany OOO recently. I designed this guitar to be a finger picker and that is exactly what it turned out to be. I used a pyramid bridge which has a wider string spacing than the typical belly bridge.

This guitar is very bright and has amazing projection. I think that it is a little weak in the bass and I probably over braced it or didn't thin the top enough. It was very stiff before bracing. As I said earlier, this guitar was supposed to be a finger picker. Each string seems to have it's own personality. When you strum a chord you hear six individual notes. I also built a englemann/bubinga 0000 at the some time. This guitar is a strummer with lots of bass without the boomyness that you get with a dreadnaught. When you strum a chord on the 0000, you hear a single sound with each string blending into the the others.

I'd use redwood again but I'd try to loosen it up just a little bit to get a slightly more balanced guitar.

[QUOTE=Steve Kinnaird]

Oh, bad luck! Colin, I was this close to ordering a Sitka dread from you.

Guess I'll have to see if Russell is booked up, or maybe Dave?

Steve[/QUOTE]

As it's you Steve, I'll build you a sitka Dread if you want. Can I just check that I've got the measurements right.

Upper bout 10.5"
Lower bout 14.5"
Waist       8.8"
Body length 18.5"
Scale 24.9"

Oh and Sitka is Picea abies, is that right?

Braced for the flatpickers favourite 10-47s of course.



Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Mike,
I seem to recall that you had one of the tops labeled "B", which had that beautiful stripey quality to it. Those rang like a bell and were very very stiff. You can still go in and voice the bracing some, or since you french polished it, you could perhaps thin the perimeter of the top some too, but you would have to re-bind perhaps. Do you remember how thin you went on it?

Colin, you crack me up!Don Williams38761.4175462963

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Don,
I'm inclined to leave it alone. It's still a pretty good sounding guitar. I might lower the height of the lower tone bar a bit. The bass isn't terrible. It's just not as much as I would like. I left the top the same thickness that I do for spruce. ~.11   As I said before, I'd thin it a bit more on the next one if the top was as stiff as this one was. Tom traded me a redwood top for some spruce at a NEL meeting. Were his from the same batch as yours?

Mike,
Don and I got that batch together. Although there were about 5 or 6 different variations. I think we had them marked A through F. Not sure which one I traded with you.

The one on that guitar, if I saw it at an NEL meeting was definitely a "B". That was one of my favorite stacks, all from the same hunk o' wood. I'd be tempted to whittle away at that X a little if it isn't already scalloped...back in the early 80's I had a Guild that I had voiced like that by my local luthier, and it really helped with the low end. He was very careful not to weaken the structure too much.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."