First Parter Guitar

[Dennis Mitchell]

As for age, I think he's in his upper twenty's. To be honest, my wife came up with the idea, and I ran with it. She's met him, but has yet to drag me over and introduce us. Someday.......

You're right about free rein Dennis. my Father was a wildlife artist, and did his best work when simply asked to paint a particular animal, bird, etc.

Jim, only the body will get painted, and he uses acrylic artist colors. I've got a few light coats of shellac on the test board, but you have to go easy so it doesn't cause the colors to bleed together. Plan is to finish it in nitro *if* I have good success on the test board.

[Dennis Mitchell]

And here it is!

[Lefty]

Holy Jesus!

Lefty

[Aoibeann]

Holy Jesus!

Lefty

I was struggling to find words for my reaction. I think Lefty covered it quite nicely.

What color is the hardware?

Aren't ya done yet?

[Dennis Mitchell]

OK...now that I picked myself up from the floor. I'll toss in comments from folks not on this forum:
(1) "WOW" twice
(2) "WIIIIICCCCCCKKKKKKKEEEEEEDDDDDD!! That would make a heavy metal goth guitar player VERY happy!"
And there ya have it! Jesse is *out there* and yeah, one of those who lives somewhat on the dark side, but still a very talented artist. He can also do just about anything you want with an airbrush. So there will be more solid body builds in the future if all goes well.

I'm not done yet, but it does have two sealer coats of shellac on it. The harp guitar is priority one right now. But I will say that a conversation tonight reminded me it's nice to have connections with major touring and recording artists. More on that story as it develops!

[BaldEagle55]

Dennis,

My son Tim loves the look of this guitar (he is 16). I can only say, it is awesome....great look.

Tom

[Dennis Mitchell]

Thanks Tom!

Again, the art work was left totally up to the artist, so I had no idea what I would get back. Hmmmm.....I can call it the Halloween '09 limited edition!

[Arnt]

Nice guitar, but I don' think he'll get many request for refinish jobs on vitage Martins

I like it, I mean it! In the right setting that guitar will be just the thing, even if it is not exactly my thing.

Dennis, forget cedar, use a hardwood. Ash is all but indistructable. http://www.arrowwoods.com/fixins.htm Good people to deal with.

I was living in southern NM when I got started in traditional archery. I was poor and in school, so I made all my own arrows. I found that cedar dries out in the desert and becomes brittle. Grazing a target stand was usually enough to put the arrow out of commission. I found that ash holds up better and I like the added weight. At first I thought that the extra weight would be a problem, but I found that it wasn't. If anything, the weight helped with penetration. I had far less target rejection after switching from sitka to ash.

I hadn't noticed that you guys were talking about archery. I like to make traditional, or "primitive", bows, but I don't make many arrows. I have all the fletching jigs, feathers and stuff but there is only so many hours in the day... Anyways, I often repair broken spruce arrows with ash footings, and they become almost indestructable. If you are worried about the added weight with ash or other hardwood arrows, footings are a good compromise. You can also make them a good bit thinner, of course.