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I was really fortunate to obtain A piece of a set of Koa thick enough to make an archtop out of.
it is really beautiful piece to boot ! Dead quartersawn from end to end, nice curl and beautiful color.
I’ve been looking for years and years for a piece of wood like this and I just stumbled onto it.
I was also able to source a one piece Koa neck blank from Bruce at Notable Woods.
All the appointments are ziricote.






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Beautiful guitar Brad!

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

Stunningly elegant Brad.

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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.

Very, very nice and that Koa is indeed stunning!


Steve

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Very nice Brad. It has flame too! Nice.

I like the simplicity, and the bold f holes. When it's done, give us a listen.

I bought some Koa scrap pieces at Woodcraft a while.ago, and have a violin back roughed out but not finished. It feels and works.like no other wood I've used. It seems light and dry and resonant. Like a much lighter version of Padauk, but even stiffer. How does that happen? Maple rarely feels like that. How that relates sound wise, I don't know. Clear? Loud?

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Why be normal?

When it's done, I want to hear it - ok?

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

Very cool!!

That will be great! Also hoping to hear it.


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Sweet! Was the back hard to carve? How did you do it?

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

Ken,

To me, the closest thing to koa as far as carving and weight is honduran mahogany. I have only made flattops with koa backa nd sides asn spruce tops and again to me it has attributes of light mahogany.

Chris, I will put up a sound clip when it is done.

I am a ragtime player so I will have to find a Jazz guy to demo it as well.

Terrance,

No, it carves and sands easy like mahogany.

I did my usual Lancelot carver to rough it out,then 36 grit on the 4" grinder,then 60 grit on the 6" Festool.I also do some thicknessing with a round bottom plane.
After its' all together including binding I use a scraper for the recurve and finish sander with the 5" Festool and sand out to 180 grit.

As I have mentioned before it only takes me about 2 hours to rough out a plate using this system.