#13 Large Style
In the second week of January, my good buddy Stephen came in to pick up #13, which was his 2nd hand-did guitar! I am so blessed to have people who want to take a few risks and do some new things. Several new things on this one which helped me push my skills and refine the style.
Two new design features stick out immediately: 1) the open headstock and 2) the scoop cutaway. Stephen and I had talked about a cutaway version and he was up for doing something out of the box. I had seen these scoop type cutaways and so we ran with it.
Very pleased with the way the scoop turned out and learned a lot doing it. It is basically the inverse of the arm bevel in the lower bout, but much trickier to get everything to line up. I am already working another of these into a small body nylon string I am building, but the scoop will be the sound hole. Stay tuned for that one…
The open headstock gives a nod to the old slotted headstock, but with modern tuners. We originally had Grover Rotomatics but decided they looked too bulky for the sleek look of the headstock. It did not take much to talk S. into some Gotoh 510s with black buttons. I think these are some of the best (if not the best) tuners available today.
In the pics above, you can also see the spectacular macassar ebony we picked for the fretboard. Really nice when paired with the evo-gold frets and the fret marker inlays.
As you can see in the above pics, this guitar had the elevated fingerboard and adjustable neck that I have built into my last several guitars.
The main thing about the guitar that you can’t get a sense of just by the pics is that this is my larger body TL model - roughly the size of a dreadnaught. After playing my parlor size guitars for several months. This thing seemed ENORMOUS. For the back and sides, Stephen pick a very nice set of near perfectly saw sapele I had on hand. I love this wood, very radiant.
The neck is 5 layer mahogany and walnut blend with some maple accents in the back strap.
The Rosette is paua abalone and adds a nice amount of bling.
We finish off with some arm bevel and sound port action. Boom.