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This was a fun project. Might have all been in my head but it seemed easier and faster than the jumbo's I usually make.... once I got the new jigs done. I was surprised how much sound I got out of such a small body. And, I panicked the first time I tried do reach in the sound hole. my hand juuuuust barely scraped through.

Addi, Koa, Birdseye, Paua, Gotoh. Scott Antes Plans from LMI. Just ordered parts to build two more for a couple customers who want something comfortable for the living room and office.

Nice. I like the headstock shape and how the inlay works with the shape. That looks like a nice koa set. What body dimensions did you use?

Before I made my first parlor guitar, I cut some mockups of small sound holes out of cardboard to be sure I could fit my hand inside. The smallest diameter that would work for me was 3 1/2".

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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

Very, Very Nice!
All the elements work well together.
What type of finish did you use on the maple fingerboard?
Many people are surprised at how good smaller bodied guitars can sound. I build a number of different instruments, but small bodied guitars are my favorite.

That's beautifully made! The peghead looks great. Did you put finish on the maple FB and bridge?

I have only made one parlor and was also pleased/surprised by how much sound it put out. I'm in the finishing stages of the second one now and hope it have more success. I know what you mean by the soundhole difficulties. My parlor design had a small soundhole and it is forward shifted towards the fretboard end. It is really difficult to get the bridge gluing caul in place and I had to get longer reach clamps to get there and still be able to go in the soundhole without bumping the outside as I try to put it in.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I like the inlay!

The maple is a nice change up from the normal rosewood. I like the leaves on the headstock too.

Very cool!

Nice!

Thanks guys, I very much appreciate the positive comments. I have two daughters, one is an artist and the other very administrative. The artist does all my visual design work... including the inlay, logo, wood colors, etc. I make the sawdust. Other daughter runs the business and does sales/marketing/accounting.

I'm currently using Crystalac products exclusively.... and that includes the fretboard. I basically do my amber toned sanding sealer (grain raiser) everywhere, including fretboard and bridge, and recently I've started spraying 6-7 thin coats of clear gloss finish over the entire guitar (except the bridge is taped off)... this includes the fretboard. I then sand the fretboard to 1500 and that's it. I also tape off the headstock and fretboard and spray two thin coats of matte on the back of the neck before assembly cuz I've found a lot of people really prefer that. I also knock that back with 1500 to give it a silky feel.

This really makes it easy to finish the fretboard and get a smooth and non-glossy surface... BUT. I do have to clean all that finish out of the fret slots because I fret after the finishing process. It's a pain, but so far I really feel it's worth it.

The Koa did turn out nice. But, I get the sets from LMI and they are expensive. The two sets I ordered this week were $380 each I think. But, if they keep looking this good, it's worth it.

Dimension wise, I didn't dimensionally alter the original Antes plans from LMI at all (at least not externally). The bracing is dramatically less "stout" than what was on the plans... but several people have said the same thing I believe.
That said, the body is 19" tall, lower bought 12 1/4" upper 9 1/8". Body depth at the neck is 3 3/8" and at the tail 4 3/16". Sound hole is 3 3/16".

I use the screw-on style of bridge clamp, and it was a close call getting the washers and wing nuts on but I was able to juuuust reach them. The most awkward part ended up being the neck bolts, oddly. with that small space, my hand had to be half-in and half-out to hold the alan wrench and it was annoying as crap.

Sweet little guitar Terrence. Nice details and very unique. I bet it sounds great!

I use a stubby ratchet with a short extension and a hex socket for the furniture bolts I use It allows me to turn the bolt with my hand outside the box:
https://www.harborfreight.com/hand-tool ... 46742.html

I use a 1/4" hex bar long extension and socket and access through the end pin hole. Only works well if the hole is drilled for an electric jack as it probably doesn't fit through a standard end pin hole. Started this with archtop bolt ons. Clay's would work fine for regular flat top holes.

Beautiful!
How do you get those inlays so tight and nice looking in that maple?
(My skill set routing for inlays in light wood is lacking.)

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Formerly know as Mandodiddle.

This is a subtlety I didn't figure anyone would ask about, but for me was probably the biggest process improvement over previous guitars. Those leaves are on all our instruments (brand name is "Vine Guitars") so I've done a couple hundred of those pesky things and finally figured out a good way to deal with them.

First, maple is pretty soft really, compared to many other fretboard choices so that helps.

- I have any surface getting inlay at it's final thickness, fretboard radiused, etc.
- We shape those leaves one at a time by hand so they are all slightly different, but I've gotten good at making the base just over 1/4" in diameter.
- I shape them with a slight bevel all the way around (no big secret here, but makes this process work)
- Use a 1/4" forestner bit to cut the initial cavity where the base of the leaf will sit.
- Set the leaf in and mark the point lines with an exacto knife. At this point I have an outline that matches the bottom surface of the leaf, and with the bevel, it's too small at this point.
- I use a palm chisel made for cutting round veins in relief carving (about 1/8" diameter scoop basically) and do a few vertical chops into that point to my scribe lines. Then I get the last bit of the point with a 1/8" chisel.
- At this point the leave is usually just starting to go in. I then gradually push the sides of the point away from the recess and maybe even cut a little more off. The maple allows me to compress the fibers rather than cut if it's just a bit I need to remove.
- Once the leaf goes about 75% of the way in I stop.
- And the magic is the softness of maple. My inlay material is pretty thick, so it's strong. I mix maple dust with epoxy, put some in the hole and then use a piece of spruce scrap to force the leaf into the hole. The maple is soft enough that it gives/compresses around the edges, essentially forming to the imperfections of the inlay. This can take a good amount of force, but when it's done I'm dead flush and all I have to sand off is any residue from the glue! And the fit is perfect.

I know that was a long answer, but it's a little different than the usual; cut square inlay/CA/pry off/mark with blade/dremel/fill with epoxy and insert. My eyes are so bad that even with magnifiers I make an absolute mess with a dremel... plus the bit I used to use in it sucks. The method above is dramatically faster and gives much better results. What used to take me about 90-120 minutes is now about 30.

Wow! Coming out of the gate with a show stopper Terry! Even that wacky bridge goes with the flow. Well done on the creativity! It's a great shape. I think I've built 8 for myself and I still don't possess one. Very punchy and much loved by the age demographic with $$$.

I had a DM question about doing that vine inlay, but I couldn't figure out how to post pictures, so I'm going to put the reply here. Apologies if that anti-cultural in any way... but it relates to this thread so.

Since I'm planning to offer this as a standard model, I didn't want to get into an overly complex process for the vine, but still wanted it to look organic/natural.

I did the first one in a test fretboard scrap "by hand" using an inlay tool designed for "stringing" style inlay, like I would do on a federal table leg, or decorative table top. I made a cradle for the fretboard blank with indexing pins that match the pins I use for my other jigs and templates and just kinda went for it with the tool:


I basically played around with each radius until I got something I liked and cut them sequentially into the test fretboard. Once that was done I cut the test fretboard in two pieces along the inlay channel on the bandsaw and smoothed the curves with a spindle sander. That gave me essentially an exact copy. Next, the problem is to reduce that copy by about 1/8" so I could use a pattern bushing and bit to cut the actual channel. There are a couple ways to do this, but in this case, since I had both sides I could use one side as a guide to cut a channel a little wide in my template plywood, and that would make the opposite side slightly smaller, leaving the gap I needed for my pattern bushing and bit. I then made indexing pins to hold this template onto the cradle in just the right place so I can basically take a router and cut the whole vine in seconds:


At that point the only real challenge was finding a bit the correct size, and getting it into my Festool router (which takes 1/4" bits). For work this size, virtually everything is going to have an 1/8" shaft. I bought a reducing collar (Amana Tool - RB-102 High Precision Steel Router Collet Reducer 1/4 Overall Dia x 1/8 Inner) that worked great and then a bit that matched the thickness I needed.

Hope that all makes sense! I think without the pictures it would be really hard to describe.

One minor thought and suggestion, since you mentioned using this on future instruments - if you continued the inlay line on the fretboard onto the lower part of the peghead veneer and ran it off the left side, when it reappears on the top of the peghead it might give the optical illusion (when viewed from the front) that the vine inlay wraps around the peghead.

Neat and tasty! I like Parlors.

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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.