I've moved the previous progress photos that used to occupy this page to a separate progress page, so if you'd like to see those, please click the link. The current photos here feature the guitar as finished, but not finally assembled. This guitar was a personal project and I've been putting off assembling it, but I wanted to show it here. It's a beautiful original, with some features similar to Carl Thompson's guitars and basses, like the floating wooden bridge and the wooden tailpiece.



The bridge you see in these photos is hard maple, just blocked in and ready to be finally shaped once I begin the setup of this instrument. It'll be trimmed, shaped, and compensated for each individual string as I set the intonation of the guitar, then I'll give it a couple coats of Tru-oil just to protect it a bit before putting it in place.

Note the brass plate on the Southern side of the tailpiece. Like the one discussed on this Del Fuego page, this one also has a ground wire soldered to it so as to ground the strings and provide something more durable for the string ends to stop against.





The controls planned are both volume and tone knobs and a 3-way switch.

Here are some photos giving a better view of the back and its contouring.







As I mention on the progress page, this headstock - I call the "ladyslipper", as seen on this Orpheus, was originally designed while drawing up this guitar. I've laminated a veneer of walnut across the back with a touch of figure on the vollute that gives it the illusion that the wood bunched up to allow for the vollute.







I'll leave you with a few closer shots of the cherry wood that also gives you an idea of the quality of finish I strive for. I love cherry wood on the quarter, because of those ray flecks. The finish I prefer on most of my instruments is hand-wiped Tru-oil, which is a high-grade varnish used on quality gunstocks. Each coat is wiped on with a small piece of cloth and some guitars or necks will have as many as 20 or 25 coats. I rub each coat with 0000 steel wool after its application and allow it to dry before applying another coat and repeating the steel wool rub down. This removes any lint or bumps and the final surface is incredibly smooth to the touch.

Since it's wiped on with a cloth, each coat is micro-thin. After all the rubbing with steel wool, levelling with extremely fine sandpaper, and final hand buffing, I've taken off almost as much as I've put on, but the surface is rich, warm, and inviting like wood should be.






Specifications

Body: chambered cherry with bookmatched, spalted maple top

Neck: cherry w/ 10-degree 6 in-line headstock w/ maple veneer, dual-action trussrod, graphite rod reinforcement

Pickups: Kent Armstrong humbuckers

Switching: volume and tone w/3-way pickup selector

Bridge: maple floating bridge

Tuners: gold 6IL

Finish: Tru-Oil body and neck.

 
For pricing and a list of some options, go here.