Official Luthiers Forum!

Well, I finally get to send this one to it's rightful owner. I started this guitar over a year ago and it has been nothing but a pain from day one. I had a thread going here about replacing the top after I forgot to tighten a router bit and destroyed the original one. Also had a thread about the macassar side that refused to bend. Had a recent thread about reaming the bridge pin holes a little too much. But, it's finally finished and it sounds pretty good, considering the adi top will take a while to open up. I'll be delivering it this week.


Many thanks to all who helped with all my problems on this one!

Now for some pics. BTW, the pics are not very good. My sweetie got me a 10 megapixel canon camera for Christmas last year and I still haven't learned to take decent pics with it.

Full frontal.


Back view.


Curly koa bindings work well with macassar.


Peghead and FB inlays are from Andy DePaule


Andy even hand-picked some matching abalone for the rosette.


Hope this worked okay, first time posting pics on the and and improved forum.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Dave - What a great looking guitar! Thank you for sharing the finished pics. Your persistance to work through the pitfalls shows that you have what it takes.

How long before we get to hear a sample??

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Steve Walden
Aspiring Builder,
Bartlesville, OK

Hey Dave, thats looks great. I love the look of curly koa binding. Can you post a better photo of the fretboard inlays?
Also, maybe take a look and see if your camera has a fingerprint or something on the lens. The contrast appears quite low.
Warren.

I know what you mean Dave. I have one like that. It should have been done last Sept. I have been fixing problems of my own creation ever since. Including a complete refinish.

I'll have pics in a couple of weeks. I hope.

Cecil

Thanks guys!

I'm hoping to get a chance to take some outside pics before he comes to pick it up. I know the contrast is way off, just couldn't do much better in the hallway.

Geeze, I wish someone would post a toot on how to take decent pics of these things. Hesh, buddy are you listening?

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Beautiful guitar Dave!

I have had a couple of those "guitars from Hell" also. I share in your joy of completing it

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Reguards,

Ken H

Great looking guitar, Dave! Terrific job of overcoming obstacles.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thanks Ken and Waddy!

I knew most folks here would understand, most of us having been there before ourselves. The owner just said I could keep it till next Tuesday so it can be included in a photo shoot for a local magazine here. Good thing, since I don't have much of anything else around that is photo-worthy.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Looks like it was worth all the trouble! Nice looking guitar. Clinton

Oops, forgot to put in the vital statistics for this one.

Top - Adi Spruce from Steve at Colonial
Back/Sides - Macassar Ebony from the Zootman
Neck - Walnut/curly maple/mac ebony/curly maple/walnut from John Watkins
All inlay material from Andy DePaule
Bridge/fretboard/haedstock veneer - EIR
Bindings - curly koa from Bob Gleason
Tuners - Waverly nickel w/ebony knobs
Scale length - 25.4

I think that's all.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Nice one Dave. Gotta love those koa bindings.

Congrats to U. and to the new owner, it's a Rector!

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Dang, Dave, that's sweet!
I'm going to hazard a guess, that you learned more from this hellish effort than you would have done with a number of unbroken successes. There IS no teacher like adversity.
Just try not to forget the lessons!

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Dave she looks GREAT!!!!! You get the thumb AND five clapping hands for this one buddy.

The macassar looks beautiful and is on my list after seeing brother Andy build with it many times and suffering from wood envy here.........

Great job!!

Bruce, thanks buddy!

Steve, I can't believe I got a "that's sweet" from a Kinnaird brother. You guys build some of the nicest guitars I've seen yet. Thanks man.

And a thumbs up from Hesh! Now I feel like I'm getting somewhere.

Oh yeah, I wanted to mention that I did learn quite a few valuable lessons on this one. I hope, like Steve said, that I don't forget them.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Dave, you actually got a "Dang...that's sweet"! Which takes it up another notch...so to speak. Don't be too impressed--me and the bro are just a couple of hacks. But we call's em like we sees em, and dang, yours looks sweet.

KBW

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Sorry Steve, guess I forgot the "dang". Hey bro, you think you are going to make it to the OKC gathering that Dave Rickard posted about? It'd be great to meet you in person. Tey to make it if you can okay.

Todd, on this one I had a set of sides that refused to be bent. So I called the zootman and voila, a new set of sides that were a perfect match were sent. The second set bent great! Then I had the box finished and was routing the neck pocket and realized that I hadn't tightened the router bit. Scrap the top (I did learn how to remove a rosette that had been glued in with CA though). Bought a second adi top from Steve and started over with the bracing, binding, etc. Finally got everything together and sprayed with lacquer and was trying to buff a little spot on the lower bout and buffed right through to bare wood. Refinished the top. Glued the bridge on and thought it looked pretty good, it wasn't. Had to remove the bridge and do that over as well. Thought I was finally done and danged if I didn't have a couple of slightly loose bridge pins. Ordered some oversize pins from StewMac and fixed that.

So it was a learning experience. Not the type I prefer but a learning experience none the less.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Looks great, Dave. Love the bindings.

As for photos, I don't have a tute as such, just a way of seeing a scene and trying to predict what the camera will do with it. Or TO it, as the case may be. First thing, lose the flash. When trying to evaluate lighting before the shot, all bets are off if you're using flash, unless you really know how to do lighting with flash, and even then, flash from the camera most often gives mediocre results at best. Then you'd want studio lighting, but it's not really needed for what we do here.

I think good photography is more about seeing than the equipment. Try to start looking at how light behaves. If you're outside on a bright day, notice the range of light/dark. The bright areas are very bright and the dark are very dark. Contrast is very high. Look at the edges of shadows. They're sharp. Most cameras will amplify these factors. In this lighting, it's easy to have a highlight go pure white or a shadow go pure black. On a day with light clouds that put a veil over the sun, notice how the lighting is softer, shadows have softer edges. Medium contrast. These usually make for nice photos. People don't have to squint and they don't have black shadows under their chins and eyebrows. This kind of lighting is the easiest to get good results with. Cloudy days, no shadows, dull colors, soft contrast, but you can get good results with a little work on the computer.

Get a tripod, even if you have shake control. It will really help your composition. Turn off the flash. Learn to use the color balance on your camera, to get accurate color under different lighting sources, since flourescents and incandescents and sun have different colors. When I was doing photography the only time I didn't use a tripod was when I really needed to be moving around, like at a party or wedding reception. I was force to use flash then.

I recall from one of the "show us your shop" threads (probably started by Hesh!) your shop is well lit. Try shooting in there for starters.

I've learned that if I'm standing comfortably with the camera at eye level, I'm probably shooting from the wrong angle, because I'm doing it for my own comfort and not for the sake of what will end up in the image. A mentor from years ago said, "start with the assumption that you're standing in the wrong place."

Also, bracket. Your camera should have a plus or minus exposure compensation feature, so shoot 1/2 or 1 stop above and below what the camera says. You'll be taking at least three shots every time, but you'll have three exposure levels to choose from. The less correction you have to do on the computer, the better. Remember that the camera is trying to make the average of all the light and dark in the image a medium gray.

Another approach is something like what Frank Ford has on frets.com if you want to go that route.

http://frets.com/FRETSPages/General/aboutphotos.html

John Mayes has put up some really nice photos, maybe he'll join in.

There's a web site that I can't find the link for, where a bass builder has tutes for using natural lighting to photograph her basses. Anybody have it?

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

WHAAA??????

If you and your bro are hacks, that makes most of us what, butchers, I guess!

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Thanks so much for the tips Pat! I agree with the above statement. I have a Canon Rebel XT 10 megapixel camera that should be able to take great pics. Pretty sure what we have here is operator error.

I've saved your tips to a file and will re-read them before each photo session as a reminder of all the things I did backwards this time.

I love this place.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Dave, I'd love to come. It'd be great to meet a bunch of the guys here, and in fact, we've got cousins in the OKC area. However, to quote a song title from Booker T, time is tight.
We've got several guitars to get done before the GAL convention, as well as getting ready for that event.

I sometimes feel like this guy--> .

And Pat, we've seen your work. You are as f a r from a butcher as one can get. I can still picture that heel detail you posted a few months back. And it's still inspiring me!

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com