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This one just strung up today, and I'm very pleased with how it's turned out. I wanted to make a 12 fret to the body, and played with the bracing pattern to approximate what is done in Martin's Norman Blake model. The floating finger board is because of the adjustable neck joint that I use on all my guitars.

Body - Birdseye Maple- from the Zootman
Top - Engelman Spruce
Bracing - Red Spruce
Binding - Purpleheart
Neck - Queensland Maple
Fret Board - Minneretchi
Bridge - East Indian Rosewood
Head Stock Inlay - Gold MOP, Pink Mussel, Koa
Finish - Pre Cat Lacquer

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
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Cairns, Australia

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"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

That is goregeous!

Outstanding, Allen!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Wow. Love the inlay!

I love it.
Do you have a picture of the top bracing you would be willing to share?

Mike

Allen, I've been waiting for a guitar to turn up made from that outrageous birdeye. You did such an excellent job! Many thanks for posting that, mate. And the guitar supports that inlay magnificently.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Congratulations! What is Minneretchi?

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Quite an attractive guitar and mouth-watering maple, but, I would put up some (constructive I hope ) criticism: the routing tear-out is very visible in the spruce around the rosette and detracts from the otherwise excellent work. You could easily avoid this problem by scoring the circles with a circle cutter prior to routing. It is a minimal investment and only takes 1 minute.

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Build log

that is gorgeous!!
phil

That's great Allen! Serious birds eye. I've never seen them so large. Awesome inlay. All very cool.

Cheers,
Danny

It's a dessert hardwood from Australia. Very hard and dense.


And here's a couple of shots of the top bracing. The bracing is forward shifted, and just the tips of the bridge intersect the x-braces. There is also a fair bit of room between the bridge and the intersection of the x-braces. I was concerned about getting a triangle shaped dip in front of the bridge, so I extended the bridge plate a bit in front. I also kept the top thicker than my norm, and then perimeter thinned once the box was closed up.

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

Very nice Allen. gorgeous work.

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http://www.casperguitar.com

Allen, that is very fine inlay work and I really like the selection of contrating materials you have used to detail the guitar. Congrats!

Terence
www.guitarbench.com

Nice guitar Allen. I have never seen such large birdseyes before.

Is that an adjustable neck with a floating extension?

Yes, an adjustable neck. You adjust the action with the stainless cap head screw visible in the heel. Truss rod adjustment at the head stock. I want to make it very easy for anyone to adjust the guitar with minimal fuss. One of the other Australian Luthiers has made a modification to this same adjustment system to incorporate a strap button by changing the cap head screw to a longer one, and fitting a complimenting wood button to the stack.

The maple is from the last OLF swap meet and I managed to get 3 sets from the Zootman.

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia