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Hi all,

I finished my sixth guitar today. Here are the specs:

Model: Kinkead Kingsdown done in cutway
Top: Engelmann Spruce
Back/Sides/Head Veneer: Quilted Bubinga
Purfling/Markers: Paua Abalone (from Andy DePaule)
Bindings: Ebony
Finish: Shellac (French Polished)

There were a number of firsts for me on this guitar. They include: ebony bindings, adding binding and purfling on the fret board and French polishing.

Here are some pictures (sorry, I don't take the greatest pictures):








And for those of you that made it this far, here's my son's friend giving it it's first test drive:



Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I should have said that my son's friend's name is Lucas Haneman.

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Love that Bubinga!!! Nice job Pat!

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Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

Great guitar, Pat. That's a robust sound for a first test drive. Love that quilted bubinga.

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com

Unbelievable....My God, that boy Lucas can PLAY! Hope you guys don't mind if I rip that song off YouTube on my hard drive, that was fantastic. The music was oozin from his soul...Oh yeah, the guitar.....freakin awesome, nice pics, nice vid. Beautiful wood. For number six I LOVE IT. Gotta go hear him play again.

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"After forty-nine years of violin building, I have decided that the search for a varnish is similar to the fox hunt. The fun is in the hunt."
Jack Batts Maker and Repairer of Fine Violins

Really, really nice Pat. Looks great and sounds great. The Bubinga is really an eye-catcher and your inlay and binding work really gives it a nice touch.

How was the Bubinga to work and bend?

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Peter

WOW! Beautiful Guitar! That Bubinga is really great. Lucas Rocks!!! Timid little guitar player, isn't he.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Holy Mackrel, Catfish!!!!

Beautiful guitar and an awesome player too!

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Reguards,

Ken H

Lucas is awesome. And that guitar is awesome too. What beautiful wood, drool drool. Go Lucas!

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Pat, that is a gorgeous guitar, and it HAS to be set up "like butta" for Mr. Lucas Haneman to have pulled that off on fresh wood. SMOKIN!

Lucas, put me on your mailing list! I wanna hear that live!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Pat - Lucas and the guitar sound great (better than your tennis racquet I'm sure!), and the guitar looks great as well. I'd be glad to hear progress reports down the road on how you think the French polishing is holding up as a finish for a steel string guitar. I have an OM I'm finishing that way, too, and I have my fears!

Jim

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Fantastic!
I'd also like to know how that quilted Bubinga was to bend?
Congrats,
Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammm, that boy can play!

Where is the zoot from?

Wow, that's one pulchritudinous guitar Pat!

Lucas sure does it justice, doesn't he?! Excellent stuff!

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"

Nice guitar, Pat, the Bubinga is certainly showy. But I particularly like the way you arranged for the 3rd and 4th string ends to point to your name! That must've taken a lot of trial and error.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Great Job Pat
Looks good, sounds good. To quote Darth Vadar...Impressive

Thanks for the comments. Much appreciated.

Yes, Lucas is an amazing guitar player. He's currently in the jazz performance program at Concordia University in Montreal. He and my son have been playing guitar together since grade school. My son is good, but Lucas is a prodigy. The guitar I'm starting now is for him and, when I get closer to retirement and able to spend more time building, I hope to get a few guitars and Lucas to the show in Montreal. Aside from being a great guitarist, he's an unassuming, great kid without the ego that you might think would go with that kind of talent.

As for bending bubinga, I should have added that as another first for me with this guitar. I have to admit, I was pretty nervous as I had read that quilted bubinga can be tricky to bend. Prior to doing the bending, I bent a lot of scrap to improve my bending methods. In the end, I made two changes to my approach which I think are significant: The first is I'm now using the spring steel slats from Blues Creek Guitars which I feel provide support for the bending wood because of their resistance to bending (you have to ram in pretty hard to press the wood and spring slats into the cutaway region of the bending form). The second is that prior to bending, I spray the wood with Super Soft II veneer softener. This stuff really makes a difference and I won't bend sides again without it. In the end following this approach, the bubinga bent with no problems.

The other thing I found with the bubinga I had was that it was light (my previous guitar was in macassar ebony and relatively heavy) and porous. In fact, there is some spotting on the inside of the guitar where the epoxy I was using to pore fill went all the way through the wood. I'm not sure if I should have or could have done something to prevent that.

Finally, I liked Colin's observation about the third and fourth strings pointing to my name. I never noticed that before!

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

dang that kid can play his a$$ off!

The guitar sounds outstanding!! Just think after it is played for a while.

The workmanship is beautiful!!

You should be really proud of this one. Can you give the URL for that video? I tried to save it but it didn't work.

Wow it`s still in one piece.He put the hammer down on that baby.
GREAT GEETAR James

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

I have to agree with everyone that is one stellar guitar. The bubinga is BEAUTIFUL. Where did you get it?

Lucas is an amazing guitar player. What a great person to demo your new guitar. I think you should get him to do that for every guitar, and then share a bunch of videos with us!

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-Rob Eckert
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Very nice looking and sounding guitar Pat !! Great job bending the bubinga.
I swear by SuperSoft II also ! great stuff.
And...That's my kind of music ! Great sound there by the youngster! He's
a heckuva player !! Thanks for sharing that Pat !

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Very nice guitar Pat - well done!!

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Ann Arbor Guitars

I bet I have listened to this at least 20 times now... sure would like to hear the rest of the song

Come together!!!!!!!!!! RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!

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Reguards,

Ken H

Pat - nice guitar, Lucas - great playing

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010