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There be some beautiful, classy guitars.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Haans,
Those instruments are absolutely beautiful. Your craftsmanship is superb and I think your level of ornamentation is just right--not too much, not too little--absolutely perfect to my eyes.

I must also say that I particularly love the voluptuous body shape of your "in progress" oak instrument. I will say frankly that I have always been a bit skeptical about oak as guitar wood. Yes, I know it has been done successfully by lots of builders, but it has never seemed quite right to me. .......Until now.

Your oak guitar is forcing me to reconsider my previous opinion. I think it will be a pure beauty!

Patrick

Thanks folks!
Once you have tried white oak, you start to question whether some of those fancy backs are worth the expense. I do have a bunch of Brazilian, so I have to use it on occasion, but I have to admit that white oak and sapele are probably my favorites. They seems to sell in stores too...

Here's a photo of BBQ Bob with neck dovetailed and ready for T/R and carving...



Looks like a small guitar till you consider the long scale. It's just a bit smaller than my GC.

Hans, that oak is truly beautiful!!!

Thanks Jeff!
I much prefer the "Yer Grannie's furniture" style white oak with ray and flake to the more "refined" comb style figure that I use on other instruments in the higher $$$ range. Trouble is, the old style oak is getting harder and harder to find. Most of the QS white oak nowdays is not that figured.

I've not seen a lot of oak guitars,and really enjoyed the sound bites. Thank you.

No, you won't find many using it because it is not "popular". It was somewhat popular in the 20's and 30's and in my book, all the more reason to use it. Most builders tend to emulate the big factory guitars, and they pretty much won't use QS white oak. Martin tried it, but stupidly made the instrument a cutesy, gimmicky "Prairie" looking guitar with fake dovetails along the back center seam. They sold a few, but I think they would have sold more if they just would have made a D18 style or 00 with a cheap price. An even better reason to use it is for it's tonal qualities...combined with red spruce, It's hard to beat for a very fundamental, bluesy tone. Will make a VG 12 string too if you believe 12's should sound the way they did in the 20's and 30's.

Here's a few photos of Dakota Dave Hull's GC-6 white oak. He's supposed to pick it up Monday and says it will take a couple of weeks to make friends with it before we do a video or two...

Here's one of several videos that we did last Tuesday. I just replaced the camera audio with Dave's studio recording in iMovie.
Hope you enjoy it!

Thanks Hans, great thread!

Your work is inspiring & the sound clips prove your design decisions IMO.

Please keep adding to this, I'd love to see more mandolin pics if you have the time.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Beautiful work Haans I always look forward to seeing your latest build

I love QS Oak its a fantastic wood and it sure makes a great choice for guitars!

Dave

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To be someone must be a wonderful thing!

Thanks guys!
Kevin, looks like I won't get to finishing the mandolin till spring. Pretty well done with finishing for the year...
Dave, I hope more folks will use white oak. Aside from filling and dying, there are no drawbacks and plenty of positives to using it.
I might do a detailed photo build on one of my next instruments...

Thanks for sharing Haas, inspiring.

I can't understand how luthiers and musicians can say that an instrument should be made a certain way and with certain material. We should all know that different musicians prefer different sounds and that with cites were going to have to start building with different woods, I like the oak. What counts the most is the quality of the work.

Thanks guys!
As most folks here know, I build a very different guitar than most builders on this forum. I tend to break almost all the conventions that are expressed around here.

..and that's one of the reasons why I like you Haans!

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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."

Hello Haans,

Those are some beautiful, masterfully-made guitars here and on your website. I am especially intrigued by your use of white oak. I have some nice quarter-sawn white oak that I have been considering using for a build. Now I am inspired to get 'er done!

One question, if you will - what stain do you use on your white oak to get such a deep rich brown that emphasizes the figure?

Thanks,
Tom

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I spent most of my money on women, guitars and whiskey, the rest I wasted.

Thank you Tom, the filler is black and sanded off, then a red/brown mahogany Trans-Tint dye is wiped on the back and ribs.

Hey Haans,

This is a very beautiful and Inspiring documentation.
Looking forward to more.

Afraid that is about all of it, Ankit.
I've had to quit building because of health reasons. I do have a mandolin finished but just have not done any photos yet. Also have several guitars in need of finishing and don't know when that will be outsourced.