Left-Handed Cutaway Guitar

Andy D’s guitar has now been completed; he picked it up earlier in the week and I’m glad to say that he is very pleased with it. I’ve made another demo video for YouTube so you can see me, making a fool of myself, trying to play left-handed.


I was very pleased with way the guitar turned out and one of my favourite features is the cutaway. When you look at many factory guitars, you can see where they get their standard bolt-on neck and use it on a cutaway body leaving an ugly step; there’s an example below (no names mentioned!).

Their's....

Whereas building one-offs, as I do, you end up with something like this.

Mine...
Beautiful!!

75 Hours...

Well, all the construction work is now done and the cittern is ready to lacquer. All the woodwork plus the preparation for spraying has taken 75 hours so far. It will be interesting to see how long the finishing process takes. I normally spray 3 coats of lacquer a day and then spend an hour or two the next day sanding it down; the instrument will get 20+coats!

Pretty stuff!


Above you can see the Paua shell rosette that I made for Andy D. I haven’t used Paua in a rosette for quite awhile and had forgotten how pretty it can look.

The head overlay below is Snakewood; it’s clear why it’s called that. This is the first time that I’ve used it; it’s incredibly hard and dense and sands to a silk like texture. It would make a great fingerboard for a fretless instrument.