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Alright, my turn for show and tell. Here is my first attempt at a Larrivee L shape. Bracing was based off of the best trace I could manage off of my L-09 Koa, as well as an article from Grit Laskin where he had some plans shown. The top is Curly Cardera White from Alaska Specialty Woods. I don’t want to get into a curly top debate, but I did have some doubts about this top as it wasn’t that stiff, but I did it anyway. I also got a Curly Spruce (not that curly) and Curly Chrome from them. Both of those are very stiff with an excellent tap. The Curly Chrome will go on curly Bubinga OO after my in progress OM.

So with the combination of my questioning the stiffness of the top, having to sand dings out a few times and going light on the bracing, I was a bit worried the top got too thin and it was going to belly too much. The best I could measure before finish, the top seemed to be around .105, but that was taken at the sound hole, so it may still be thicker in the lower bout. I strung it up late Tuesday night and all seems good. It didn’t explode and doesn’t belly that much. Its set up really high, but playable. I’m going to let her settle in another week or so and do a proper set up.

Tone. Hard to compare to the original as that one has ancient strings on it. So this one seems really bright just because of that. But good all around.

Weight. The factory Koa/Sitka comes in at 4lbs 9oz. This Black Limba/Spruce is right at 4lbs. So it feels really light.

New headstock design. This is an adaptation of a bass headstock design I made a good 15 years ago, but never used. It was inspired by the Alembic Omega tail like http://www3.alembic.com/img/dr_body.jpg. It was a real pain in the A to do and finish, so I’m debating on using it again. I probably will and will probably carve the point into a cylinder as I originally intended. I put the pic on its side so you see how it relates to my last name.

Materials:
B+S - Black Limba – Gallery Tonewoods (swap meet)
Top - Curly Caldera White – Alaska Specialty Woods
Neck – LMI with modified profile
FB – Ebony – LMI
Binding – Wenge - swapmeet
Rosette and head cap – Black Palm - Rockler
Butt Wedge – Black Limba – side cutoff
Bridge- Ziricote – probably from Colonial, maybe RC
Pins – Ebony from one of my Larrivees I replaced with bone.
Headplate – Malaysian Blackwood - LMI
Nut and Saddle – Unbleached Bone – Colonial
Bracing – Adi from Old Standard

I used a lot of different accent woods, but they all seem to match together very well.

So what did I mark as my areas for improvement.

#1 finish. Tru-oil. It looks really good…where I didn’t go through micromeshing it out. I have to go back and touch up the body. I ventured on to get it done and didn’t want to wait several weeks more to move forward. I want to switch to French Polish for the body and say with tru-oil on the necks.

#2 fretting. More specifically fret ends.

#3 pore filling. This one was a nightmare. Despite hearing Black Limba doesn’t have that bad of pores, this has five times worse than the Wenge. So it ended up less than perfect.

So I still have to do a proper setup and polish the bone pieces, then do some body finish rework. The bridge needs some slotting work and fine tune the reaming. All in all, I’m happy with it.

Zach my friend she looks really cool!!!!

I have not seen that shade of brown in the BL sides and really like it.

Also your headstock shape is pretty unique and cool too - nice design.

Pesky fret ends can be secured by using one radius fret press caul down from the radius of the board and clamping, carefully wicking in thin CA, and holding it clamped until the CA sets. By one radius caul down I mean if you have a 16" radius board I use a 14" radius fret press caul to secure ends that need securing. The smaller radius caul concentrates on the fret ends. While it's clamped in place with say the Jaws Stew-mac press you can wick in the thin CA, carefully...

Very cool guitar and great work!!! Congrats!!!

Zach;

Looks killer!
How's she sound?

Mike

_________________
Mike Collins

Thanks guys

Filippo, thats some sweet zoot. Who's Chris?

Hesh, I don't have a problem getting the ends to stay down. I'm looking more at getting a nice shape on the ends. I've done a bunch of digging through the archives and want to try getting nice semi hemispherical ends on the next. So for I cut oversized, trim the tang, install, then trim and shape the ends. I'm trying to wrap my head around shaping the ends before installation and getting the length just right.

Collin, she sounds good. Seems a bit less focused and chimy than the original, but I think my perception is more due to all my other guitars having very old strings. Those are overdue for fresh strings which will allow a proper comparison. All in all each string has good tone, no real apparent deficiencies in any range. The soundport changes the perception as well. Just difficult to play as I have to lower the nut and saddle quite a bit more.

Nice looking guitar Zach! I like the multi-colored sides.And the headstock design is nice as well.

Zach,

That's a really nice lookin' guitar you got there. Can't believe I missed seeing it since Saturday. I've got a Black Limba OM just getting to the finising stage now. Is that Larrivee's bracing pattern or something you came up with?

Steve