Official Luthiers Forum!

Don’t you love it when people call things “presentation grade” “museum series” or “an important piece”

At any rate, this is the “pinnacle of my career”…

Master grade Sitka spruce top
Blistered hard maple back and sides
Curly hard maple neck
Gabon ebony fretboard, bridge and head veneers
Mother of pearl and abalone inlay
ABS purfling and binding
Celluloid nitrate pickguard
Gotoh tuners
Ivory nut and saddle
Nitro finish





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What a stunner! I could NEVER do anything that beautiful. Very well done.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Cool FB inlay!

That is one Beautiful guitar!!! You didn't overlook a single element, that includes right down to the pickguard and bridge!

Love all of it, especially the headstock and fingerboard inlay

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

I like how your tree of life inlay goes positive and negative against the background. I haven't seen that done before. Beautiful work overall.

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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

Wow man.
Hats off.. (if I were wearing one)
Next time I wear a hat I’ll take it off for you, but I suppose the fact that I’m not currently wearing a hat could mean that I’ve already done so. Regardless the next time I procure said hat and place it on my head I’ll be certain to promptly remove it just in case.

Super fine work man... really


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I absolutely love it! Fantastic work sir.

That's a Beauty!
It won't play second banana to no banana!

Brad

Really wonderful. You have to write up a toot on making that bridge

Ed

My wife had to bring the floor jack in from the garage to jack my jaw back up to it's original position.
Let's leave it at perfect in every detail.
Curious about how many hours?
The guitar actually spoke to me and asked me to tell you not to put a pickup in her.

Alan

Dang! Awesome work!

Thanks for sharing that. I think I need to find a nice Maple set before people catch on.

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.

[quote="Ruby50"]Brad

Really wonderful. You have to write up a toot on making that bridge

Ed[/quote


The bridge is actually pretty simple to make.

For the cutout part, I drilled 3 holes at each corner of the design and then connected them with a jig saw.....

Then rasp, file and sandpaper to clean up

Then cut the outside shape with the bandsaw and cleaned up with the 6X89 sander and hand sanding.

It took 4 hours to make including the inlays

Thanks!

170 hours....

Wowzer!!! An absolute stunner.

Nice work. Maybe not my cup of tea, but I certainly appreciate the work that went into it.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

As always Brad, top notch.

Holy cow. That's an amazing piece of work. Do us all a favor, Brad, and don't try to top this one.

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George :-)

Brad, that one looks like an old Italian "show off" guitar with all the bling. Even a mustache! You pulled off all those elements without it looking gaudy. I think that it is the fine execution that does that. Really stunning. That maple is really something.

I have the varnish on my 10th violin; actually a 5 string viola; and I am finally somewhat happy with my varnish job and just about everything else. But it is NOTHING like yours. It still looks like someone who is only learning. But at least I'm closer to happy than I've been before.

I hope to be always learning, but how many guitars have you built? Just to know that there may be hope that some day things will come together.

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Why be normal?

Ken,
I have built over 100 instruments in my life...
Mostly guitars with couple of mandolins and ukuleles as well...


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It’s funny, when I first started building instruments all I wanted to do is make them as fancy as I could and then realized I really couldn’t pull it off so I’ve been building mostly simpler ones so I figured it was time to try it again....


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Very beautiful guitar Brad. I've alway enjoyed looking at your creations. Hope y'all have a Merry Christmas.

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"After forty-nine years of violin building, I have decided that the search for a varnish is similar to the fox hunt. The fun is in the hunt."
Jack Batts Maker and Repairer of Fine Violins