Official Luthiers Forum!

I took a little trip yesterday down to LMI to pick out a set of African Blackwood for an upcoming project. Chris Herrod gave me the tour thru the wood pile and I found just what I was looking for. That was fun but on the way home I stopped by the shop of Bruce Sexauer for a visit. What a treat, he had just recently strung up three of his fantastic guitars and I got to play them all. Dynamite guitars, all full and rich sounding with incredible sensitivity. The trebles were full and rich without being the least bit harsh. Something to shoot for. I also watched him mix up and spray a batch of his varnish on a guitar bound for Eric Shoenberg's shop. I picked up a couple sets of Jatoba wood (Brazilian Cherry) which is a wood that looks quite a bit like mahogany or Sapelle but is very dense and hard. One of the guitars I played was made of this wood and it works great.John How38721.4928587963

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

... Man, I gotta move to the States... Not much here around Ottawa going on.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

You live closer to Mario than me, by a couple of miles across our river

Hey John, sounds like a great day.
what were the guitars that you played? OM`s?

Hi Matt, good to hear from you. I think they were a couple OM's and a 00. One was a fan fretted model. They were all great guitars though. You ready for that big show yet?

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

I wish I could just take a little trip over to LMI and pick out my supplies???
Andy

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Well, I usually don't as it's about 2 and a half hours each way and in the SF Bay area which I want to avoid at all costs. I just wanted to be sure about the piece of wood I got this time.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

   Serge, indeed. I know Mike Greenfield is in Montreal. I might just screw up enough courage to actually make the trip one day.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

I didn't think LMI would let you go through their wood to pick what you want. When I was there the deal was they would bring out a couple sets at a time to show you. Allied was just a block away (before LMI moved) and pretty much let us look at whatever we wanted, as long as we kept the bookmatched sets together and left them neatly stacked like we found them. Guess where I spent more money. :)

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Hey John, can you elaborate on how Bruce mixes his varnish? BTW it would
be great to invite him on the OLF, he's active on another forum though. Also
I'm quite curious about the Jotoba, how would you describe it and what did
you play to compare it with (rosewood, mahogany)?

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

You ready for that big show yet?

Not even close   
thanks for asking

Hey Alain, how about splittin' gas with me?

Serge, sounds like a plan...

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

[QUOTE=laurent] Hey John, can you elaborate on how Bruce mixes his varnish? BTW it would
be great to invite him on the OLF, he's active on another forum though. Also
I'm quite curious about the Jotoba, how would you describe it and what did
you play to compare it with (rosewood, mahogany)?[/QUOTE]

His varnish is Behlen's "Rock hard table top" varnish. He uses a small touch up gun with about a 1/2 to 2/3's cup jar on it. In this amount of varnish he will add maybe three cap fulls of acetone and two cap fulls of turpentine. This is carefully mixed so as not to make bubbles and filtered into the spray gun.
You have to be pretty mellow with sanding between coats with this stuff till you get a fairly decent build and try not to sand thru coats because you may get witness lines. The acetone helps with this but may not entirely keep it from happening. Use shellac as a sealer under he varnish.

The Jatoba looks a lot like mahogany but is much harder heavier and denser so it doesn't sound like a mahogany guitar but more like you would expect a rosewood or ebony guitar to sound.John How38723.4580902778

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

His mix sounds like you need a serious breathing mask… I thought people
using varnish brushed it, sanded it, brushed it again etc. His guitars look
amazing, that's for sure, I only heard sound samples on the web and they
sound nice too. Are you going to build something with the Jotoba soon? I'm
tempted to buy a set.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/