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Congrats Alex. Absolutely beautiful. !!

Lars

Yep the others have said it all Alex . Outstanding job especially considering it is only No 3.
Love to hear a sound clip.

Regards
Craig

Very nice work Alex! a fine guitar, I look forward to hearing it. I especially like seeing the use of veneer for your purflings, I always notice when I can see the flame of the maple in a side purfling as in your close-up picture. I also like the top purfling with the red, I did a very similar looking top purf on my last guitar maple-bubinga-maple-ebony and I'm very happy with it.

The photography is outstanding, what was setup like?

Simply wonderful, Alex!

Understated elegance. I especially like the rosette.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Allow me to add my congratulations on a beautiful instrument Alex....

Nice work and attention to detail. I'm sure that you are proud of it and for good reason.

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Peter

Alex,
It all looks really great! Butt strip, top and side purfs. And you have to like Rubners. That's something you can be proud of. I don't mind the look of pores. It makes it look a little more like....... wood. It's funny what we have come to think looks best. Rick, warm and woody or shiny plastic looking.

Cheers,
Danny

Thanks again everyone, you are too kind!



Marc,
Did you do the bubinga veneer yourself, or bought it somewhere? I dont recall seeing any offered. I have a stash of bloodwood veneer for future red purfling but the stuff likes to split just by looking at it and it is a pain to cut and handle. Bubinga sounds like it can replace it, also work together with bloodwood and Indian rw for some sort of Autumn leaves theme.

The lighting setup consisted of 3 flashes, one on the right slightly behind, one on the (handheld) camera, and a third, with a big diffusser sitting on the left of the camera. We either put the guitar on a tripod (scary) or hung it from the ceiling with a nylon string. A black velvet cloth was in the background which was later almost completely painted black in software.

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Build log

Alex, you are right about Bloodwood veneer. I am using it on both my #2 and my #3, and found it to be a pain. The only way I could get the strips not to fall apart, was to actually line up with the grain, usually at about 25 to 30 * off line with the sides of the veneer sheets, and cut with the grain. that seemed to work better. Even then, though, it still wants to split off the edges. Once glued to something else, it is much better.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Stunning, great work.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Alex,
Unless I want a special thickness, like 1mm or something really thin like .008" I just buy my veneers from veneersupplies.com. I usually look in the specials area and by a lot-supply that is not suitable to the veneering people (for whatever reason) and get a many-years quantity for under $100.

As I said before, I really like a non-uniform appearance in purflings, so I look for highly figured maple and other woods. The bubinga I use is highly figured so it tends to splinter like bloodwood. I work around this by cutting 1 inch strips of the bubinga then glueing between two maples in a form so it's cold-bent into shape . The maple then prevents the bubinga from splitting. I do the a similar process with bloodwood on my rosettes.

Here's a picture of the figured bubinga with some maple and ebony, you can see in the next picture how the figure gives a marbling effect in the purfling.

Excellent Alex!

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Beautiful guitar!!!!
Can you please tell me what wood is the yellow line underneath the rosewood binding?

Looks terrific, Alex! Well done!

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http://www.casperguitar.com

Definately way better than my third. Congratulations Alex!

It's needless to said that I like the continuous end graft, too. <g>

Just absolutely gorgeous!
Love the Torres crest...

Great looking guitar Alex! Bet she sounds good too.I like the rosette also.Thanks for showing.