Official Luthiers Forum!

John brought up his intention to build a git out of local woods so I thought I'd post one of a few I've built with wood from my own property here in the Northern California foothills. Have you got some to show?
A Prairie State shape with Black Oak back, sides and neck with Manzanita laminations. Top and bracing is Ponderosa Pine (with a bit of staining). Manzanita is used for all other parts.

The Manzanita bends pretty easily with heat and moisture for binding and purfling.

The position markers are the outer sapwood of the Manzanita.

Gracie is inspecting it.

This pinless bridge is one of my first, they get better.
.

That's sweet!

_________________
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.

I made this one from local pine and oak several years after one of the hurricanes blew through here. Yea that's a crayfish on the headstock. I guess this is my "hurricane model", you'll know when you play it, you'll "be pickin up a storm", ha

https://imgur.com/hBaNRZZ

Pine tops can be quite interesting and lots of variation in staining. I've got some Sugar Pine billets drying where the wood is very white but with black and blue staining.

The latest of my local wood guitars. Another parlor. This one has a top of "landsinker" Redwood which spent 40 years as a bottom board of my hot tub. Back and sides of QS Oak. Neck is Ponderosa Pine. Binding, bridge and neck lamination is Manzanita. Rosette, pegboard face, end graft and routing error inlay is spalted endgrain Oak. Grover tuners and Shatten soundboard pickup.

That's a beauty. I have a plank of local spalted birch and some white spruce that will become a guitar at some point.

Local / non-tropical woods are a big thing for me.

My black locust 000 is sitting behind me here in the office.

I've probably posted a pic before of the maple B&S / pine top I built from woods from our county.

I've been using walnut B&S I've milled for the last two customer guitars.

I'll see if I can dig up some pics.