Official Luthiers Forum!

I did most of the construction of this guitar last June, and it was finished by late July.. but it took until late September before I finally got it finished. It's on it's third set of strings.

Special thanks to Rick Davis at Running Dog Guitars and Cat Fox at Sound Guitar Workshop in Seattle. Their expert tutelage and friendship were instrumental (pun intended) in getting a good result!

Here are the specs
Body Style: Running Dog Concert Jumbo w/ Manzer Wedge (I used Rick's templates)
Back/Sides: EIR
Top: Sitka with a little figure
Neck: Mahogany with EIR/Fiber Lams and CF Reinforcements
Fretboard/Bridge: Ebony
Rosette: EIR/Zipflex/Maple & Black Fiber
Binding/Heel cap: Curly Koa
Purfling: Zipflex w/Maple and Black Fiber
Tuners: Waverly Ebony Button
Inlay: MOP
Finish: Spray Poly by Joe White (Thanks Joe!)










More pictures here http://www.flickr.com/photos/jim_hansen/ (don't miss the 2nd page)

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Jim Hansen

Outstanding, Jim! Beautiful guitar!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Really beautiful! I bet it sounds as good as it looks.

Danny

WOW!! That's one beautiful guitar you've created there Jim!!

Are you keeping it?

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

VVVVVerryyyyy NICE.!!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Um .. yes?

I honestly have no interest in building guitars for anything other than fun. It's just a hobby

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Jim Hansen

Very nice guitar Jim and with a bunch of cool features too!

Outstanding!

Gorgeous!

Max

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Max Bishop
Brighton, Michigan

Jim,
A beautiful guitar, with stunning implementation. It's got an amazing amount
of detail work, and I love the wood combinations. That's really
nice EIR!

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

Very nice. Especially for a 2nd guitar. You done well!

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Very nice Jim.Real fancy for a 2nd guitar. Well Done !

NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How's she sound?
mc

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Mike Collins

Guitar porn there man....eyecandy!

Congrats on a beautiful guitar!!

Jeff

Fantastic! nice binding and perlfling. is that Zipflex?

Thanks for the kind words everyone...

Mike, I'm not one for finding the right words to describe the nuances of a guitars sound, but suffice to say, it sounds really good. =) Much better than my first, which was over braced and the top was too thick. This is, in particular, is where Rick's vast experience was so helpful. We spent a lot of time discussing plate thicknessing and bracing. I learned a lot from him.

Wes, yes, it's zipflex all around, including the headstock and the rosette. I can't compare the experience to using any other product because it was my first attempt at using a shell based purfling. I will say it was fairly easy. It's just a matter of routing the channel the right width and depth. I do recall some tense moments when discussing glue options , particularly with the rosette. I wanted to stay away from CA to prevent it running into the endgrain, but I wasn't sure the stuff would hold up with titebond. I ended up gluing the entire rosette assembly in with titebond, and then carefully floated thin CA into the zipflex channel to seal it. It seems to have worked out well (so far).

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Jim Hansen

Hesh just PM'd me about the origin of the bridge I used on this.

The bridge and the fingerboard came from John Watkins at CNC guitar parts. I had originally set aside a stock Martin style belly bridge for this project, but once I got it built and was ready to locate the bridge, I decided I wanted something a little more unique. I had bought some bridges from John at @CNC for a different as-yet-un-started project, and decided that it would be a better fit esthetically than the stock Martin style bridge, so I fitted/located it, and havn't looked back. I love that bridge!

Hesh tells me this was his "Stealth" bridge that John had started selling. I'm not sure how I did it, but missed the connection between the name of the bridge on Johns website and Hesh's work until he just mentioned it to me.


The fretboard also came from John. It is one of his faux-bound ebony 25.5" scale fingerboards.

The quality of John's work is excellent, and they were a perfect fit for this project.

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Jim Hansen

Beautiful guitar Jim! I especially like "everything" about the headstock. The design, purfling,binding, and inlay are all classy and fit really well. Inspiring work!

Stunning work! Really like the shape. If my first solo build comes anywhere close to what you achieved I'll be over the moon.
Cheers
Rick