Music from the woods of England

A while ago I mentioned a project called, “Music from the woods of England.” The idea is to get British Luthiers to make some steel-string guitars entirely from indigenous woods, which will go on exhibition and will be given to the Nation as a permanent collection.
After doing a bit of research, it transpires that indigenous woods are those which grew in the British Isles before the last Ice Age and there are only about 30 or so species and some of the woods that I had wanted to use did not fall into that category. I doubled checked with Neil, the organiser of this project and he said that naturalised species were also allowed. So below is a drawing of my initial idea.

So far I have produced full-size drawings and am about to start making an external mould. I have got some fabulous English Walnut that is going to be used for the back, sides AND soundboard and the neck is going to be made from rippled ash. I have been fortunate to come across Andy, a great supplier of fine quality wood and he has been really helpful in sorting me out with most of the woods that I need.

All of the guitar’s internal construction will be from Scots Pine, if I can find any that has tight enough grain. The main stumbling block is the fingerboard, I’m trying to find some Laburnum or Hornbeam; if you’ve got any, I’m your man!