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I'm back in the U.S. and had one of the dreads from my first batch of Zepeda steel strings sent up to use as a personal guitar/demo. I've already taken it to Charlie Hoffman and Martin Reynolds for an inspection and have gotten some helpful feedback.

Thanks to all here for the construction help you've provided! There are still some things to work on, but I never would have gotten to this point with Sergio without all the advice and tips I've received here.

Andrew

Wow! Very nice. No critique from me, I think it looks great. Are you happy with the sound?

Jeff

That's the aspect I'm most pleased about, actually. Both Marty and Charlie thought the tone was excellent. The bass is a little "thuddy" right now, but I'm thinking that it's at least partially a setup problem...I think I need to get some nut files and fix the thicker gauge strings. Overall it's got a lot of volume (especially considering the shallow depth), a lot of sustain, and a pleasing effect. The braces were fully scalloped, and on the first dread (this is the 2nd from the same batch) I thought the trebles were a little thin. On this one they seem quite solid. We're going to try a Bourgeois approach with the treble side mostly unscalloped on the second batch to see what happens.

Also slated down the road is a switch from dovetail to one of the easier/faster options. Marty suggested that a bolt-on neck might help brighten the sound a bit, as it's fairly dark right now.

Andrew

I like it a lot Andrew! Where should I start? It all looks good! Gorgeous top,and back and side woods. I would like to know what kind of wood you used for the neck ?? really cool! I like your neck heel too and the bridge is awesome! Very nice work. No critiques here either.

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Beautiful guitar... Great wood choices. I love the rays and lack of runout in the top. That is a fine piece of wood. Good work!!!

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

The neck wood is "cedro real", i.e. Spanish cedar. We've got access to mahogany but the price is spiking in Nicaragua like everywhere else and finding good quartersawn wood isn't easy.

Top is from Acousticwoods.ca - HAA grade, actually!

We're going to start out at the $600 price point. There are some blemishes on this one and the fretwork wasn't as good as it should be, but all in all I think these guitars should be able to compete well with the Chinese imports. Their guitars are always going to be more polished but I think ours will have better materials, better tone, and above all have the handmade/custom and fair trade thing going.

Andrew

Hey Andrew-

I like your guitar too. Are the back, sides, bridge, fingerboard and headplate all cocobolo? Whatever the woods are it sure is snazzy looking. I've ordered some wood from Ed Dicks too but only back and sides, I'll have to try those HAA sitka tops he has. The one you used on this guitar is gorgeous.

I haven't seen any other threads about your Zepeda guitars before. What is the story on them? It sounds like you have guys in Nicaragua building you guitars with native woods - if that's the story then it sounds like a pretty smart venture. Good luck.

Happy building-

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John Lewis
Wannabe builder owned by 2 crazy dachshunds

Everything's Nicaraguan cocobolo. It's dry country cocobolo, which is much more orange-y/reddish than the wet country stuff.

I moved down to Nicaragua last August. I met an experienced guitarmaker there named Sergio Zepeda and we became good friends. I spent a lot of time in his shop learning how he builds and discussing a lot of guitar construction approaches. When I knew I was going to move back and open up a handmade guitar website, we worked out a partnership where I would provide materials and help him with design and he would start building some steel strings for me to send to the U.S. and sell.

It's been very stressful at times - difficult to get materials there and the differences between spanish style construction and steel string construction are more numerous than I realized at first, but I think we finally have something going. It should work out well for both of us. I'm providing all the wood and components and he's doing the building and already making more per guitar than he usually gets. Assuming quality stays consistent and we start getting some kind of a good reputation, I'm hoping to bump the prices a little higher and make it lucrative for him. He sells tons of classical guitars but other than tourists, not too many people down there have the means to pay for good quality guitars with good components.

Local quality standards in general are far from U.S. expectations, whether it be housing or food, so it's been a long road to get to this point. Sergio's much more knowledgeable about modern building techniques and the more advanced aspects of construction than the other builders down there so he's the only one I plan to work with. We'll see how it goes.

Andrew

Andrew, hard for me to critique such a beautiful instrument! i just love everything i see here, and i have a question for you. is cedro from the family of cedars(softwood) and if so, how well does it carve? Must be like butter or am i dead wrong?

The cocobolo you picked is just gorgeous and so is that top, simply elegant!

Thanks

Serge

Yeah, I have some of tha Nicaraguan Cocobolo...it's wonderful stuff. It's much nicer than the stuff I've gotten from Mexico. Very nice indeed. The guitar looks good. Very red!

My thoughts on some of the features:

The headstock seems a little bit long without a logo on there.

I'd like to see a rosette with more rings myself. The single ring with herringbone is a bit understated for me.

Purflings...needs purflings, especially on the top and sides. The sides could use a line or two to seperate the binding from the sides visually.

I'm noticing what appears to be or looks like a line in the wood on the back of the headstock, just north of the volute. What is that?

Someone who lives in Bluegrass country recently told me that grassers (as he calls them) prefer Martin shaped bridges. You might want to have him move more in that direction if you plan to enter that arena.

I like the neck wood. Nice stripey stuff. The Coco is great too.

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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."

[QUOTE=Don Williams] I'm noticing what appears to be or looks like a line in the wood on the back of the headstock, just north of the volute. What is that?
[/QUOTE]
Don, I think it's the scarf joint.

Andrew, I agree that the headstock looks too long (with or without a logo) by about an inch. The only other thing that caught my eye is that the fingerboard looks a little rough at the edges but that may just be the pictures. Otherwise, it looks nice and the wood should be a real selling point.Don A38900.7381712963

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

[QUOTE=Don A] Andrew, I agree that the headstock looks too long (with or without a logo) by about an inch.[/QUOTE]
That was my initial reaction, too, but after a while it started to grow on me. It could, in fact, be considered a distinctive feature that makes a Zepeda stand out from the rest.

I agree about the headstock length...I'm going to try paring it back 1/2" or so on the next batch and see how that looks.

Purfling will be a small upcharge option, and I assume most people will want it.

The rosette was my choice, though I agree that in the future more rings would give it a more standard look. I'll try that on the next batch.

As for the price - I've thought long and hard about it. The problem is that there are small aesthetic blemishes on Sergio's guitars and that's not likely to change soon. Some of it is due to the limitations of his shop and equipment, some of it is just a lack of attention to detail. You'll notice if you look carefully that there's a filler strip behind the nut because the headstock overlay and nut don't meet as they should. When filing the edges of the frets a final time, he nicked the finish on the side of the fretboard in a couple places. There's some overspray inside the body that shouldn't be there. Minor stuff like that. And the chinese guitars may have some inferior materials, but in general they don't have those kind of detail issues.

In the future, our standard guitars will probably have a lower grade of spruce top and the cocobolo won't always be this nice. There may be more sapwood inclusion than a lot of people want on some of the guitars. Sergio's setup work on steel strings isn't great at this point, so it's altogether possible that upon receiving their brand new guitar, the buyer's going to have to pay for a setup. That would be very frustrating at a high price point.

In time, I definitely believe these guitars will sell for $1000 and beyond, but I want to build a base of very satisfied customers first. I'm not making much on each one, so it's pretty important that the buyer be content with it at the price they paid. 2 out of 5 people wanting to return the guitar or wanting some money back because this defect or that defect shouldn't be there on a $850 guitar would wipe out my profit on the other three.

So the $600 price is intended to be a starting point. If I sell 10 of them at that price and everyone is thrilled, it'll definitely increase. When people add the various upgrade options that are listed on my site (herringbone purfling, wood rosette, curly maple binding, etc.) that will add to the final price, bringing it at least a bit higher.

Again, muchos gracias for all the help! From a business perspective, I've put way too much money and time into an endeavor that may well end up flopping. But I really enjoyed my time with Sergio and really want to help him to find some success in the U.S. market. Who knows what'll happen...

Andrew

[QUOTE=harmonist34] If I sell 10 of them at that price and everyone is thrilled, it'll definitely increase. [/QUOTE]
That won't happen if the setup isn't spot on when they receive it. It's one of the most important things to consider at any price point. Customers won't want to have to find someone to do a setup, so even if they keep the guitar, they won't play it, and they won't recommend it to their friends. In fact, people who buy $600.00 guitars may not even know what a proper set up is. Those folks are going to hope that your guitar is a step up from the plywood import that they currently own, and they're going to be very disappointed if it doesn't play better than their cheap Yamaha or Dean or Ibanez straight out of the UPS box. If a guitar isn't cosmetically perfect, it had better play like butter, or you're doomed before you take your first order. If your builder can't do it, then you should have someone here do setups for you before you ship. If you make this a "warehouse" business, it won't succeed. Sorry to be blunt, but, as you've said, you've put a lot into this venture, and it would be a shame if it failed because of something so basic.

I appreciate your candor and I think to a large extent you're right. Ideally I'll be doing final setups myself, but until I get a job and a house (hopefully within the next month or two), I can't really set up shop.

That being said, however, I've heard numerous people comment on how high the action tends to be from the factory on Martin guitars, and the need for a setup right away seems to be expected even on higher end models. But the key word there might be "expected", i.e. that people who buy them know that from the very beginning.

I'm anxiously awaiting to see how the first batch of guitars started after I left turns out. Will some of the problems I pointed out with the first guitars be fixed? Will new ones arise? Can Sergio nail the setup with more specific instructions? Lots of questions, obviously.

Andrew