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I finally managed to get this little guitar completed today. Couldn't sleep, so was up at 4 am and managed to get it all done by 9 am, except for some final set up. I've got it pretty close now, but will leave it for a couple of weeks to do any final adjustments.

This guitar features the adjustable neck (at least my take on it) from our very lengthy design process from a few months ago on the ANZLF. It's also a first for me for a slotted head stock, which I must say is a fair bit more work, but I really love the look, and I think that I'll be doing a lot more of them. Also tried my hand at cutting pearl. Any way, here are the specs.

Back and sides - Sapele
Top - Western Red Cedar
Fret Board - Minnerichi
Bindings - Cheese Wood
Neck - New Guinea Rosewood and Cheese Wood, with 2 carbon fiber rods, no truss rod
Tuners - Schaller
Bridge - Brazilian Rosewood
Finish - Precat Mirotone over WEST Systems Epoxy
Weight - 1428 grams

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
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Cairns, Australia

Allen, a beautiful looking little guitar, one of those that you always have next to your chair for an impromptu twiddle. Sapele and WRC should give a classic sound as well. Great execution and the slt head certainly suits the guitar.

Great work.

Colin

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

Well, that's just a corker isn't it Allen.

I've been really impressed with what I've seen with your guitars lately. Once again beautiful work. You're making the rest of us feel inadequate - or is that just me?

What do you feel about New Guinea Rosewood (Narra) necks now that you have one strung up? they seem pretty good to me. Narra has a much higher Q than does Mahogany, what do you think this imparts in a neck? Or is a neck just a neck?

We get quite a bit of Narra up here. This bit for the neck I pulled out of the scrap bin at the Cairns Woodworkers Guild.

I've come across widely differing qualities and densities. The more common type seems to be this golden colored one. It's for the most part medium hard to soft. Very open grain structure, easy to work. The redder type seems much harder, but also rarer to find. It darkens up a fair bit when you epoxy fill it. I preferred that color to the lighter color you get without the epoxy.

This is the first time that I've used it, and this neck doesn't have a truss rod, just a couple of carbon fiber rods. The neck is really stiff, it could be that it's just so short. I feel a lot of resonance in the neck when I pluck a string. Is it good or bad? Got no idea, but this is head and shoulders the best sounding guitar that I've built.

I really don't know if Narra will ever be considered a great wood for necks, but I've got enough to do 3 more for size 5 guitars, so I'll be using it again.

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
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Cairns, Australia

Very nice Allen!

This is about the classiest Terz that I have seen and your appointments all work very very well together. At 3.14 pounds she's pretty light too and should be responsive to play and easy to hold.

Great job my friend.

Allen,

Sweet little guitar and lovely wood combination!!

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Very beautiful little guitar. I'm partial to small bodies and slotted headstocks and this is just a very, very cool guitar. Well done!!

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

Allen, Very neat Terz ! You did a wonderful job on it.Love the
Narra neck and the slotted headstock looks great.I've been looking for alternatives
to mahogany necks and this looks like a good one! I like the little guitars like this one
very much. Congrats on a cool little geetar!

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Sweet lil' thing, Allen! Just beautiful!

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Beautiful little guitar ! I'm currently finishing up a size5 EIR/adirondack ; I hope mine turns out as well as your stunning version ;nice inlay too.
regards,
jack

Man, what a nice guitar. You're gonna love that one. Great job!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

That looks great!

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Allen,
A beautiful guitar. Very nice woods, I'm especially in love with the Narra neck and
slotted headstock. I'm just finishing a size O guitar, 24.9 scale. I used common
ribbon stripe Sapelle, but your's puts it to shame.

What did you use around the socket head cap screw? I mounted my neck the same way,
because I wanted easy takedown for travel. I couldn't find a metal socket to inset
into the heel for the cap screw to fit into. If your's is a metal socket, what was it
called? I know they make them, but I can't figure out what name to Google...

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

It's a M6 stainless cap head screw and the bronze furl that it is sitting in I made my self.

Bought some 1/2" bronze dowel and cut about 6" off. Mounted this in my drill press and then "drilled" the dowel down onto a coarse file. This gave me a nice pattern that showed the exact center of the dowel. I then mounted the dowel in a drill press vise and used the pattern to help drill the exact center out to my design specs. I made the furl much taller than needed so I could scribe a line around it once I was ready to mount it in the neck. Then just ground, filed and polished it it suit.

It would be a heck of a lot easier to do this on a metal lathe, but I don't have one. If you can buy them to suit it would save you heaps of time, but I wouldn't know where to begin to look.

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
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Cairns, Australia

Thanks Allen,

I don't have a lathe either, and I had not thought of making it on the drill
press. I think I'll have a go myself. I do think these things can be bought,
but I haven't been able to find a name to search for them, and all the names
I tried bombed.

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

How about this... http://www.insertsdirect.co.uk/productinformation/screwfit/
Screwed in from the back so the head end helps keep it from pulling through, I think the M6 version might do the trick...

That's not at all what I've used.

The furel is not designed for anything other than cosmetics A nice bronze sleeve that is visible instead of a bare hole bored into the neck, and also to give some reinforcement for the cap head screw to bear against instead of possible pulling through the neck wood.

There are no threads in my unit. It's a 1/2 bronze dowel that I've drilled the center out just a hair larger in diameter than the shank of the cap head screw that I'm using. Then there is is the flat bottom hole that is again just a hair larger than the head of the cap head screw. This is inserted into the neck so that when I crank down on the adjusting screw, it's bearing on bronze, not wood. The cap head screw threads into a t-nut in the neck block that is mounted from the inside through the sound hole. If you should ever need to replace any component, it's not more than a few minutes work.

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
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Cairns, Australia

Looks really great! How does it sound?

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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 get it now... the part I was looking at was meant to fulfill the function that you are using a T-nut for. But I see now that you were describing what the head of the cap screw is bearing against and that makes total sense. It is an elegant solution...

It sounds fantastic Don. Buy far the best sounding guitar that I've built. Very clean notes all the way up the neck, and the sustain is amazing. I've used medium gauge strings on it and gone with standard tuning. When it comes time to change strings I'll try out some extra lights and tune it up a third.

I've had a few people asking about buying a parlor size guitar, but none of them have seen this one yet. I'm really torn about selling it, if it comes down to someone wanting to part with some $$$. I just keep wanting to pick it up and play it.

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
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Cairns, Australia

Awesome! Congratulations...it's always great to have one come out really special. I know what I'm gonna do now with some of that sapele that I saved....

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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."

Send some more to me Don.....Please

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
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Cairns, Australia

"I just keep wanting to pick it up and play it."

Isn't that the truth! Same with my first parlor. Nice job
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.