Stained mahogany with Indian rosewood

Here's how the binding looks against the stained test pieces. First is the body wood.





























And next is the neck wood.





























The whole guitar is going to have a pretty dark look, like the old ones look in the pictures. Having rosewood binding on the guitar isn't going to add a lot of contrast and make it look much different than a Martin 00-17 does.

The box is closed

Over the weekend my wife visited her brother and took the digital camera with her. So this, and the following posts, show all the progress I made in the past few days.

I glued the top to the sides, closing up the box. With my new radiused dishes, everything is much more accurate for me, than things were before.






























































For fun, here's how everything looks, with the parts all layed out.














Oooh...














Aaah...














Can you hear that? Shhh.














She's saying, "quit taking so long, and get this the heck over, so I can go home to Don and be played!"














I need to trim that nut, but I'll do that at the end.

































The plan next is to rout the body for binding, set the dovetail neck, finish, glue the bridge on, and setup. We're getting near the end, already. But I've been known to take my time with things.

Don gets his choice between bone and ebony bridge pins. What do you reckon he should choose?

Cloth strips on the sides

I found some cloth ribbon at Walmart that looked quite a bit like the cloth used on early Martins to reinforce the sides and prevent cracks from spreading around the guitar. I cut them to length and drenched one side with super glue. I think it looks pretty cool.

The following two pics were taken through the soundhole.















The brace in the following pic looks huge but only because the camera is so close to it.















Here I put the camera inside the guitar and used the 10 second timer. The camera is down near the end block and is pointing toward the neck block.















I'm pretty proud of how all the bracing turned out, since I made it all myself, out of spruce boards, this time.















Here the camera is underneath the soundhole and pointing towards the end block.

The headstock

Over the weekend, I shaped the back of the headstock. The pre-made Martin neck was pretty close to being finished but there was a rough area near the volute. I got much closer to making it look authentically vintage, than I did on my last guitar.




















Here's a mock-up to give an idea of what it might look like with tuners:

A case

I went to Elderly in Lansing on Friday afternoon and picked up this case.





























While I was at Elderly I played one of those Santa Cruz "1929" mahogany 00 guitars. I liked it. It has the old vibe, for sure, and will age well. But I think I'm headed in that direction, too. Since becoming a builder I notice a lot more than I used to. Are there any Santa Cruz fans here that would get mad if I mentioned that the back on that one was glued on a tiny bit crooked? Ok, then I won't.