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Was up early (my neighbors are all older than me and can't hear...) and had a good time working on the Allman Bros tune Melissa.

The ax on the right was my 5th build and it's purpose in life back then was to lead me firmly on the path to parabolic aka tapered bracing which I wanted to play/build with. It came out back in 2006 a bit too tight (restrictive) and I over braced it. Not uncommon for a newer builder.

A few years later my arm was in the sand hole with little planes and she opened up nicely. This was my first and only experience with brace shaving and it paid off.

She sounds great today. By the way this was the one that I bursted a master grade Adi top and one member here nearly had a coronary over the idea of painting wood. You know what they say in the military, if it don't move, paint it....

I usually have three out. The 00 is in DADGAD, the Gore style Steel string for most of my finger style and a negra I am using for both flamenco and classical

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

This is my daily driver, #8…. Or maybe Driver 8.




And when playing uke it’s this guy.






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Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

This is my current player.
Own design, bit of a Frankenstein as a (mostly successful) experiment.
Torrefied Sitka top and braces, EIR back and sides, Padauk neck and bridge, 650mm scale.
16" lower bout, compression braces in a cylindrical back.
Very light, stiff, thin (2.2 mm) soundboard, Tripe X brace, 12 fret,
Tried a GluBoost top finish, Osmo Oil on the rest.
Currently sitting in the corner humming away to itself when it's not annoying the neighbors in DADGAD.

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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.

The only one I don’t pick up regularly is the Bouzouki - its scale is too long

I'll post lots of photos of the one I am playing right now. It is the eighth guitar I have built. Here is the front:



The back:



A close up of the front:



A close up of the back:



Here is the headstock:



And here are the rosette and matching purfling:





The guitar is a 13 fret sorta-jumbo, sorta-auditorium. It is as wide as a dread, but with a tighter waist. 100% hide glue construction. Dovetail neck joint. Pores filled with Silver Tip, top coat is original Enduro Var, brushed on. The top is Lutz, and the back/sides are East Indian Rosewood, as are the headstock, fingerboard and bridge. The pyramid bridge is 6" x 1 1/4", instead of the more traditional 6" x 1", in order to have more gluing area. The rosette and purfling are blue and green dyed veneer, with some maple lines.

It is my main player because it is the nicest one I have built so far. It is getting dings here and there, but they are worth it. It's a good player. I think the finish is a little thick, but hey, I'm still learning.

13 fret 000, Honduran rosewood, torrified red spruce, BRW bridge, koa for binding, armrest etc. Finish is FP Royal Lac. Best sounding guitar I've built to date - according to some of the very talented musicians I hang around with.

Multiscale (25.4" to 25.15") inspired by a guitar I saw here that Bruce Sexaur built. He was nice enough to give me some more information so I could try one for myself.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

A 16” laminate archtop with plates from Steve Holst and Mahogany double sides by me. The outer laminate is spruce on the top. Mounted Kent Armstrong hand wound humbucker.

Made it to sell but couldn’t give it up. It’ll probably be my player till I croak.

C9F0DA6B-11D4-4EF6-9F0F-4685FD3C8AED by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr

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

I made a nifty Explorer I enjoy playing.
I have an Orange 30W 2x12 tube amp with no effects to relive the garage band days.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Been playing a D'Aquisto inspired archtop I made in 2020, as well as the old classical I made on the Romanillos guitar making masterclass in 2001. Both are a lot of fun to play.

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Instagram: @jfrenchluthier

This is #16. It's the one I usually grab because it's always in the picking parlor.

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

My "Benedetto" style archtop and my Weissy that I recently finished

here is one of 274

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Lately, my playing has been pretty much exclusively on this octave mandolin I finished up in February. I'm having fun adapting tunes I know from standard mandolin to it and learning some new tunes on it.




Here's a video of me playing a new tune that I'm learning called Pony Boy to give an idea of what it sounds like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVRjEf0-oU

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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

Panama Rosewood/Red Spruce D21.




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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

My fourth build from about 2005? Cedar top, one piece quilt maple back and X braced. A few experiments at the time but ended up sounding great, kind of between an archtop and flat top. It has seen many a campfire!

Curly Narra Acoustic

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Me with #1 at my regular farmer’s market gig
Regular old Martin kit, Spruce over EIR


Me again, with #4 at our summer picking porch series
First scratch build, spruce over red oak with walnut everything else

Trying to learn to play jazz

I'm seeing some very cool guitars good going!!!

This one hangs on my wall and I pick it up when I have a moment. I call it my pirate ship guitar. For some reason it reminds me mid a pirate ship ha



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Every time I build myself a guitar someone plays it, wants it, and I sell it. In an effort to avoid that happening I built this guitar, a rather faithful homage to Torres' FE-07 in Yale university's collection. Like the original the top is two mismatched pieces of spruce (packing material from my supplier in Italy), wide grained cypress back and sides, a low grade Spanish cedar neck (almost turned this blank into kerfed lining) and rosewood cutoffs from resawing backs and sides for the head plate, fretboard, and bridge. I've had two people try to buy it thus far but the low grade materials makes me uncomfortable having this out in the world with my name on it; I'm building them much fancier ones.

I can see why people want to buy it. Simple can be stunning, but getting it.that way is not easy. It looks like a little flaminco. Something play for fun.

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Why be normal?

Thirteen years ago, before playing for my (now) wife at our wedding. I had the album open for another reason tonight and enjoyed reminiscing. I'd put together just about everything in the setup. Guitar, amp, even the cables. The amp was the first thing I put my logo on.

Very cool James, I remember when you built the amp and that kind of lit a spark under me too that I picked up years later.