The Luthier Community

Great job Joe and that new top's got some character too.

Are you going to remove the bridge again for finishing? Or are you finishing around it (French Polish?)

Mat

Another beauty rolls off the Sustaire bench. Takes guts to rip into a guitar you've built, and know you can re-make it better. Glad you like it!

Dennis

Joe that is one sweet looking guitar! It realy looks like a guitar one would realy enjoy playing too! Can't wait until the finish is applied.


Thxs
Hugh

Great work on this beauty, Joe. The binding/purfling/rosette schemes are indeed elegant in simplicity, which is an attribute I always appreciate. Congratulations on a terrific re-build (kinda like remastering a recording). What difference will there be in the neck shaping?

Looks good Joe. Hope you can reuse that pick guard. I have changed a lot of ladder braced to X braced . It always sounds better to me. I hope we can hear that guitar someday.
Michael

Thanks for the kind words gentlemen, and the rest of you also.

I'm going to try french polishing with the bridge on Mat, never done one this way but I wanted to make sure I liked the sound of the ladder bracing before I tied up more time/energy in finishing and then found I didn't like it.

Fred the neck is a basic C shape with a very slight V to it down the center. On playing it again I found there was a little too much meat on the shoulders of the C shape, my hand just didn't wrap around it as comfortably as it should. So not a lot of change just a much better feel.

I believe I can reuse the pick guard Michael. I've built one of these x braced and this one I wanted to do a ladder bracing to really hear the difference. Ladder bracing can be great if it's done right, I basically just went to thin the first go round. I'm thinking that ladder bracing more fundamental/less overtone which I think works well with country blues. I don't know, I have a real hard time describing sound or understanding what others mean when they describe sound.

Thanks again everyone for your comments!
Joe

Good job Joe! It looks really nice.
Congratulations getting it to sound like you wanted.

Looks like a heck of a job Joe.

Lefty