Official Luthiers Forum!

I've finally gotten the courage to put up pictures of my first guitar. I made it in Alan Carruth's class and finished it in early May. It's an OM. EIR back & sides, bearclaw Euro spruce top, mahogany neck, bloodwood binding & bridge, Madagascar ebony fingerboard. It sounds great thanks to Alan's guidance and all those Chladni patterns. I've played it every day since we put the strings on and I think I've played my other 2 guitars once each since May. Sorry the pictures aren't better. I'm a lousy photographer.






It was such a great experience that I've stayed in class to build another one, which will be an SJ made from all North American woods. Oregon myrtle b&s (from Oregon Wild Woods), bearclaw sitka top (from RC Tonewoods), walnut bindings and neck. I'm not sure what we'll use for the bridge yet but will most likely use persimmon for the fingergboard. I hope to make guitars for both of my brothers and several of my friends. I've got to do something with all this wood I keep buying!!

Matt

You've been bitten by the bug! Incurable.............. Mikey

_________________
The Biggest Little City, Nevada
www.hammondguitars.com
I love building guitars!

Very nice looking guitar. It gives me hope that I will end up with something I can actually play.
chuck

Matt: You could display that guitar anywhere. Congrats.

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Beautiful Matt!

Did you use Al's double X bracing? Wish I could hear a soundclip.

_________________
Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Wow great job!
I wish I could hear it too.

Really nice looking guitar! Hope my first effort comes out nearly as well!

Thanks! It does have double X bracing on the top. It also has X bracing on the back even though Alan has been talking about going back to ladder bracing backs. The back of my second one in class is actually ladder braced and Alan has assured me tuning it using Chladni patterns will be about the same. I just realized that the pictures I put up don't really show the bearclaw in the top. This one was before the finish was completely polished up:



I did go to a friend's recording studio when it had been strung up for a week and recorded some stuff so we could monitor how it changes. I'm going back in 6 months to record again and hear the differences. Unfortunately, my guitar playing ability has been deteriorating due to arthritis in my wrists and hands, so I'd be a bit embarrassed to put them up somewhere. And I wouldn't know how to post them anyway.

Since there's been so much talk about Chladni patterns with Alan's DVD coming out, here's a picture of the ring and a half pattern:



I forget what frequency it ended up at but it was getting as low as Alan said it should go without closing up completely on the bass side. He said it is okay if it doesn't close up completely on that side. I've got the sheets around here somewhere. Here's one of the double X braces after tuning:



I didn't get one of the entire top after tuning, though. I don't know why I didn't take one but I didn't.

Matt

Did you shave a lot off from the main x-brace?

I don't remember how much exactly I shaved off. One of the nice things about Alan's class is everyone works at their own pace, so if you have zero wood working experience like me, you get to learn how to use all the tools along the way. However, this makes things take a lot longer. It took me over a year and a half to build the guitar going every other Saturday from 9am to 5pm. I actually tuned the plates well over a year ago and I didn't pay as much attention to the details as I should have. I was just getting the tool chops down as much as I could. It's part of the reason I wanted to build another one with Alan. I want to learn more about tuning the plates and measuring the wood and all that fun stuff. Plus, the second one seems to be going much faster.

Matt

Matt, that guitar looks as good in the pics as it does in person. Glad you're making a few more - I started 2 more SJ's but I won't be able to get back to them until later this fall. Too busy at work.

Steve

Thanks, Steve! You using that sausage scented Maple? Hopefully, I'll get to see them when they are done at one of the NH Guild meetings if I can ever get to another one.

Matt

More like maple syrup, unless I forget to wash my hands after breakfast... LOL. Tom told me to bend it with Alan, as it will be tricky (brittle?). There is a NEL meeting tomorrow, you going?

Steve

More like maple syrup, unless I forget to wash my hands after breakfast... LOL. Tom told me to bend it with Alan, as it will be tricky (brittle?). There is a NEL meeting tomorrow, you going?

Steve

More like maple flavored sausage! I can't make it to the NEL meeting tomorrow. I'm on call for work. Have fun if you are going.

Nice guitar. And nice porch to sit on and pick with your friends.

Thanks, Chris. It is a nice porch and usually has a nice breeze. But once it starts to get dark, I've got to go inside because of the mosquitoes. I live very close to a golf course and the ponds are great places for them to breed.

I found the data sheets for this guitar yesterday and the frequency of that ring and a half Chladni pattern was at 279. In class on Saturday, Alan let me use his set-up for testing the stiffness of the top plates. I brought 5 tops that I've acquired and tested them all. Plus, he showed me how to use the stiffness figures of this OM to get the general thickness of tops for future OMs. I've started collecting data and am working on getting a set-up similar to Alan's for doing this. It's pretty cool the way he uses this data to improve upon future guitars. I think this can be useful even for an amateur like me. It makes it feel less like I'm just shooting in the dark.

Matt