I was fascinated by Shane's post on harvesting Lutz so in the New Year I bought 2 tops from him. I'm a die-hard Euro spruce man but this wood excited me as it looked and felt very much like Euro spruce, had very good cross grain stifness and rang like a bell. I have finally got round to making instruments with them and here's the first.
It's my Daithi model which is somewhere between an OM and SJ I suppose. This is for a very talented young guitarist - Joe Bardwell - who plays amazing Irish rhythm guitar. His friend is an amazing young bhodran player and he has leart incredible right hand technique from him. I took the guitar for him to my annual week at Burwell and his technique is so hard that he was leaving pick marks under strings 3-5!! I have had to put on a clear pickguard covering all of the strings and not just the first 2 as I usually do. The guitar sounds amazing and the Lutz is a pretty close ringer for Euro spruce. It doesn't have quite the same initial complexity of tone as euro but it's pretty darn close and I will be interested to see how it opens up. Kudos to Shane - your wood is top notch
I'm hoping to do some recording of Joe's playing on the guitar when he picks it up next week.
This guitar was my first venture into a pinned bridge (slotted bridge)and gave me freedom to invent a new shape. I also decided I would have a new headstock shape for my pinless models.
OK enough blab - here are the specs: Lutz/Cuban Mahogany with culy koa bindings. Neck is a 5 piece laminate of mahogany, sycamore, Old Rio Rosewood with ebony headstock veneer front and back. Ebony fingerboard bound with curly Koa. Macassar ebony bridge with Koa bridgepins. 655mm scale length. Gotoh tuners with ebony buttons.H and rubbed pre-catalysed lacquer on top, back, sides and headstock veneer; Tru-oil on neck.
And some photos:
