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I just finished this one last week, its a cocobolo and sitka Signature body, florentine cutaway, tinted curly maple armrest, sideport, 26.25 to 25.25 multiscale FB, Gotoh "cosmo black" mini 510s on an ebony headstock, front and rear, logo is black MOP, bridge is dark brown braz. Rosette is segmented braz with a ring of black mop in the centre. Binding is coc, purf is blk/orange/blk. The lighthouse on the headstock is showing the way for the sailboat down the FB at the 9th (this is the first big headstock inlay I have attemped) The lighthouse walls are all black mop, the upper section is paua heart, paua ab, red ab, with the beacon a 1/2 carat cubic zirconium in 14K gold bezel. The sails are the bluest green ab I have ever seen. Waves are paua. Body is nitro, the neck is oil and wax finish. If I dont sell it by then, I will bring it with to Bob C's weekend. The guitar is affectionately called the Guiding LIght.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

beautiful work!!

Just incredible...Tony would you be willing to elaborate for a minute on that asymetrical nature of this guitar? Do these changes reflect aesthetics only, or does the elongated scale help with intonation, or just what? I love the look, just wondering what it's all about. Thanks.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

My goodness,That is Outstanding Tony! Thats the sharpest cutaway I've seen,Actually looks dangerous Your lighthouse and sailboat are very nice! .Love the armrest too! Just an incredible guitar all-round !

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Hoo-wee, that's mighty nice!

Thanks all .. it also happens to be in celebration of 5 years in business building guitars. I loaded it up with a K&K system as well, the Powerblend Pure - three transducer pads plus a piezo saddle, comes out in stereo to a mixing preamp. Sounds incredible.

As far as intonation is concerned, I dont believe that multiscales intonate any better than a std guitar - afterall, the same fret spacing formula is used. that said, when dropping the lower strings into altered tunings, they hold a bit more tension, thus the string itself intonates, plays, and sounds better.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Beautiful work Tony, I like every aspect of that instrument, I bet it has great sound as well.

Mike
White Oak, Texas

Very nice work!!

as always!

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

The sound is very open and extremely rich, sustain is definitely not a problem either - combo of the stiff sitka top and the coco body I figure, but who knows for sure !!! One of my students who also built a very nice coco/sitka OM thinks it possibly the best fingerstyle guitar he has played - and he has played a bunch.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Wow! that is just awesome Tony. I love the cutaway, it is sleek as heck.

Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

Fantastic, Tony!!! I can't wait to see it in person. Looking forward to meeting you as well

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

well, You gotta like that. Great work

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Just a couple other notes - I also built this one deep as well - its about 4 3/4 at the tail, and 4 1/4 at the heel - to fully compensate for the loss of cutaway body volume. This body style is about 16 inches on the lower bout, 19.5 long. The straight fret, upon which the whole fretboard is laid out, is the 9th. The high E 14th fret is the neck joint. I have started to go to 3/16 wide saddles on baritones and multis, to give a bit more leeway in setting the intonation. As with all my guitars, the nut to first fret distance is cut short by 1mm, quick and dirty nut compensation, but it works. I am helping a student reneck a Washburn Dimebag guitar with Buzz Feiten system (or so it says - interesting because it has a locking nut - so I measured the first fret to nut position off the original neck, and low and behold - isnt it 1mm short of the true 24.75 scale. Interesting indeed.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Oh yeah, and by the way Jim, some of your CF is going into that new neck as well !!! Cheers !!

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Tony,,,,,,,,, That guitar is mind boggling . A lot of time and care must have gone into it .

Congrats mate , Beautiful workmanship . Man ! that cutaway is SHARP !   OUCH !

Superb instrument !

Regards ,   Kiwi

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CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
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Very Nice Tony

What do you make of the Fan Fretting ?

Hey Bro -- great looking guitar! It all works really nice together.

Question if I may -- the "beam" on the lighthouse - what kind of shell is it?

Where is the new home for this one going to be?

Tony like that inlay logo on the back of a headstock. Unique idea.

Tony, i wamt to play it please! Great looking, refined and fantastic guitar as usual! Love that inlaying job and the asymetrical frets, yep, mind boggling for sure, the only problem i have now is i will be shy to show you mine!

Great job coach!

Serge

Thanks again for the very kind words - I just checked out yours Serge and you have nothing to be afraid of - You have done a great and wonderful job, and I know that feeling as I gave away a few gutiars early on to very close friends - nothing like the expression on their faces when they realize whats going on. Cheers.

For those who have never played one, a multiscale with slight fret scale differencews, like the ones I mainly build - 1 inch diff - feel extremely natural to play. When your hand is out near the nut, hold a C chord shape - notice how your fingers tend to bunch up a bit as your wrist twists, and chords like a G7 require a little stretch - the slant on the frets makes the stretch here a bit less - now move your hand up the neck, to say 8-9 - your hand here is relaxed and square to the neck, so are the frets. Then as you move higher up the board, your fingers naturally spread out as you wrist twists the opposite way. Don Alder has one of my multis - he came to my house a year and a half ago, played my Dragonfly guitar for almost twenty minutes before realizing it was a multi - its that natural. You can here him play his on MP3 on my site.

AZ - thats a huge killer piece of white MOP, from Exotic. Expensive piece, but I had to have it for this project. Pictures dont really show how the action and depth of the shell unfortunately, but the ebony plate with the oil finish stays in the background as the inlay shimmers. Looks pretty good.

The inlay of the logo on the rear came in part from something a customer said a couple years back, like maybe we will do something on the rear headstock, special, just for him the player to see. It kinda stuck as an intersting idea, and when I got the idea for this one (it struck me while driving to a friends wedding onthe 401 - a truck I passed had a huge lighthouse on the side, dont ask me what the company was !!! and I always had this idea of sails on the fretbaord, I put the two together and here it is). SO whne it came time to think about the logo, even though its in black MOP and only shimmers in certain light, I though to leave the face with just the image, no logo. I saw Bensusans Ryan up close last year at the fingerstyle festival, and the R logo on his is black MOP, and its very low key, ony really seen in certain light, otherwise you think its not even there. Neat idea.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Thanks Tony, i'll really enjoy seeing yours up close for sure!