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!!

Bit of a delay

I’ve been out of action for a bit due to an operation on my sinuses. The recovery has taken longer than I had anticipated and one problem that I’m having is that I can’t wear a dusk mark or respirator at the moment. This is particular nuisance as I should be sanding down and spraying Andy D’s cutaway. There are couple of shots below, the snakewood and paua is quite something.

I won’t be able to make the delivery date and can only apologise profusely. You can see that it’s going to be a beauty and, hopefully Andy will agree, well worth the wait.

Head designs

Whilst I can’t get into the workshop, I’ve been doing some design work. In the previous post you would have seen the pink ivory rosettes; I’ve been designing the heads for these two instruments (a nylon string guitar and baritone ukulele) and have sent the designs off for approval. The challenge is getting a shape that will work aesthetically with both instruments and mechanically i.e. mounting good quality tuners, string clearance etc. Also Morgan, who is overseeing the project, has quite defined ideas about what is wanted: fortunately we seem to be on the same wavelength!

Once I’m back in the workshop and these two get underway properly I’ll post some fuller details.

Also, you may remember the Red mandolin: this has been on the back burner for a while, but I’ve now had an offer for it from Alan and he has the opportunity for some input into its design. He would prefer a slimmer head design, so below is the modified shape.

Mandocello

Jill (future mandolin) asked a while ago about the mandocello: well there’s a nice little review of it on the Acoustic guitar magazine forum.

Many thanks for that Andrew and Jane, I’m delighted that you’re still happy with it!
Whilst on the subject of the Mandocello, you might have seen my demo video on YouTube; I can’t believe that it’s had almost a 1000 viewings!
That’s enough for now: my nose is starting to bleed again!!

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.