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Well, it's late and it's been a very eventful weekend -- a fun gig Friday night, my son's school's Spring Carnival, and yesterday, my first client picked up his guitar. It's a sitka and cocobolo Grand Auditorium-style, with curly koa bindings, butt wedge, and heel cap, sapele neck, and ebony headplate, bridge and fingerboard. I put a K&K Pure Western Mini in there and got him a Baggs Para Acoustic DI to boot. For the time being he's using an Ameritage dreadnought case while the custom one is being built.

Man, what a lot of work. For the most part the process went very smoothly, though it's only my fifth build. That is, until the finishing process, which I now realize, I know too little about to be doing on commissioned instruments. It all worked out in the end, but just took much more time than it should've (the finish, that is), and Ty is ecstatic about his new guitar. He's a youngster, as you can tell, but he's very active in his church's praise band, and he's been wanting something to spend the fortune he's making as a high school teacher on. Needless to say, he got a very good deal on the guitar, and hopefully it will give him many years of happiness.

Here's a few shots, which are not very good, but gives you the general idea. The coco isn't quite that orange -- I was using a flash...

Enjoy!

Ken

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

Ooooh! Pretty!
Nice work!

Well done ..there is NOTHING like the sight of a new owner checking out their new guitar - that you built.

Wonderful, and congrats.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Congratulations!!

Beautiful work!

That's great. Congratulations! Beautiful guitar, too.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Ken,
Congratulations! That's a beautiful guitar.

Gorgeous!

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-Marcus
http://www.bailieguitars.com
Instagram | YouTube

Great looking guitar, nice coco on back and sides, it seems like nearly everyone has reached for cocobolo lately.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Excellent job, appointments are really nice. Great headstock desing too. Congratulations.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Very nice, loose the string loops, doesn't accent the rest of the beauty, my .02.

Dave

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God, Family, Carreer

Very nice! Nice finish and I like the wood choices.

Man, that's pretty.
And I love your logo... whoo, that's clever.

Nice stuff, congratulations!

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Well done and congrats on the first commission. I'm sure it feels nice.

Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com

Congratulations Ken! Beautiful guitar man

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Dan

Thanks, y'all for the collective pat-on-the-back. It really means a lot coming from you guys. I learned a ton on this one, mostly because of the interactive nature of doing a commission -- I wound up putting a ton of thought into every step of the design process, and pushed myself into some design directions I may not have ventured into otherwise. In large part I have Ty to thank for that -- he was very involved in the decision making, yet never got pushy or annoying. He respected my opinion, and generally would yield to any objections I raised, so long as I could defend my reasoning. The final product definitely benefited as a result, and I feel I definitely grew in my design sensibilities along the way.

I've got to mention, to Dave E, the string loops are just there because those strings were on there during the initial settling in and setup, and eventually came off and were replaced by nice fresh phosphor bronze Elixirs. I did want to keep the old ones to use on my next setup, so I left the ends on to make them easier to put on the next guitar.

As far as the logo, well, it's just my initials, which is what I've done thus far, while trying to decide on a good name for my "bizness". I've struck upon what I think is a pretty good one -- Mountain Song Guitars. So now I've got to come up with a simple inlay to fit that name. Here's the label I came up with for Ty's:



It's a work in progress, for sure. Thanks again everyone!

Ken

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com