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I finished my third guitar on Friday. It was a gift for a friend's 40th birthday. It came out sounding great. It's definitely got some cosmetic issues but I did a pretty good job setting it up, so it's quite nice to play. My friend's wife asked me a little over a year ago if I could make a guitar for his 40th birthday. I told her that it would most likely not be perfect and she was okay with that. She thought it would be cool to give him a new guitar that was made by a friend and that if it had a few cosmetic issues, that would be okay. So, I agreed and we began picking out the woods for it. We ended up with the following:

Top: Lutz spruce (High Moutain Tonewoods)
Back & Sides: Curly white oak (RC Tonewoods)
Neck: Peruvian walnut (LMI)
Fingerboard: Madagascar ebony (LMI)
Bridge, Headstock, End Graft and Heel Cap: Macassar ebony (LMI)
Bindings: Macassar ebony (Allied Lutherie)
Rosette: leftover Curly white oak and black mother of pearl
Finish: Behlen's Rockhard Tabletop Varnish brushed on

My friend loved it. He didn't put it down for about an hour after she gave it to him last night at his birthday party. Here's some pictures but I'm not a great photographer by any stretch. No close ups so you can't see all the little mistakes I made. But I made it all by myself at home!


Now on to finishing the next one in Alan Carruth's class and one at home for my brother. Neither one is too far off.

Matt

NICE Matt!! Congrats! what a great gift! The guitar looks very nice!

Shane

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Canada

Ahh! White oak...

It is a lovely guitar, indeed. I love oak, too. And what a generous fellow you are.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Now there's a gift he will remember forever.
Should make turning 40 a blessing for him.
Great job!

(Say, in a few years I'll be turning 60. Now to help me over that hump....)

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Thanks, guys! The best part was seeing how happy my friend was with it since he has been struggling with turning 40 a little bit. And hearing how much better it sounded on Saturday after being strung up for about 36 hours. This lutherie stuff sure is fun!

Matt

Quartersawn Oak sure is some amazing stuff.... You managed to find yourself some extra-pretty Curly stuff! Very nice.

I gotta say -- I truly love the sound of an Oak guitar... Not sure why we don't see them more often.

Thanks

John

John,
It is beautiful! I thought I had the only Lutz/White oak. SJ. It was my second white oak SJ. I must say that oak is a great tonewood.

If interested - you can see the other Lutz/white oak guitar here.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

She looks great Matt - congrats!!!

PS: Studying with Al must be a fantastic experience?

Matt, Your friend looks very happy with the guitar. Isn't that all that matters? Great Job!

That's a beauty, Matt. Great job. Awesome gift!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Very nice guitar! And what a wonderful gift to give your friend!

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Thanks, everybody. I hope to do a better job on the next one. I'd just like to make each one look and sound a little bit better than the last.



Absolutely. I've learned so much from him and keep on getting more out of his discussions of acoustics. Seems like less and less of it goes over my head now, too! It was just about 3 years ago when I emailed him and asked if he would take a student who had never done any woodworking at all. I spent most of the first guitar learning how to use all the tools. The biggest thing I've learned is that there seems to be very few mistakes you can make that there isn't some type of fix.



My next guitar in class with Alan (after I finish the Sitka/Myrtle SJ I'm working on now) will be a white oak/Lutz SJ 12 string with a cherry neck. I bought another set of white oak from RC Tonewoods at the same time we got this set and it has some nice figure in it, too. The pores sure are a pain to fill, though. That's one of the reasons there aren't any close-ups of this one.

Matt