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I finished this Alpine spruce/maple OM just few days ago.

My goal was minimal style fingerstyle guitar. No rosette, no purflings or other fancy stuff. I didn't want it to be too pale, that's w hy I decided to use padouk for bindings.

Fortunately I was able to use local luthier Andrus Hämäläinen's equipment. He uses almost exclusively handtools, which made my first build quite difficult. His advice and help was still much appreciated.

My only goal with building my first guitar was to gather as much knowledge as possible. I made lots of stupid mistakes. Hopefully I wont make those mistakes on my future builds.
My next will be Cedar/Mad rose baritone.

Thank you all for wonderful community and helpful advice.

Mistakes are all part of the game. The masters builders still make mistakes but they are good at covering them up Looks like a nice first build to me and something that will set you on track for a long time. I still have my very first build hanging in my shop. She's over 20 years old now and still gets played once in a while.

Hows the tone?

Excellent looking guitar! Hard to believe it is your first! I like the look of the paduak with the maple. What finish did you use? It looks great!

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PMoMC

It's hard to describe the tone. From my subjective opinion it sounds loud and defined. Surprisingly, it has alot of bass for spruce/maple build.
I used double x scalloped bracing and quite thin back with 3 braces.
Compared to my Eastman AC312 (spruce/mahogany OM) I like the sound much better.

I used tru-oil for the whole guitar.
For the top I used 2 thin layers of nitro laquer and after that 5-6 layers of tru-oil. For other parts just 10~ thin layers of tru-oil.

That looks fantastic. I made so many mistakes on my first build I didn't put strings on it. I just finished my second build which had plenty of new mistakes which I've learned from as well. Good luck on your future builds!

It's beautiful, Rasmus! I love the look of the padauk bindings on the maple.

Little correction on future plans. I'm gonna start building 2 guitar at the same time next.
Adirondack spruce/koa OM
Redwood/tasmanian blackwood OM baritone fan fret

Maybe i'll post some pictures of building if anybody's interested
Building is gonna start in 2-3 weeks

Its beautifull work !



NOPE You will make DIFFRENT Stupid mistakes ! Thats why we have " doofus of the month"

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I totally agree ...
You'll make mistakes you didn't make on the first one!

Excellent. After seeing your first, I look forward to seeing progress on these new builds.

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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.

Congratulations Rasmus ... looks fantastic! Don't worry about the mistakes ... the main thing is to get the strings on it and be determined to make the next one better ... which I'm sure you will!

Started working on #2 and #3 a week ago.
Here are some pictures of the progress:

Tasmanian blackwood back


Koa back


Redwood top


german spruce top


My humble wood in stock


bloodwood rosette (abalone is for the inner and outer border)


I couldn't find mad rose set that I really liked, so I chose tasmanian blackwood. I chose redwood over cedar because I've always wanted to try redwood topped guitar. Unfortunately these don't come by very often in Estonia. #2 will be redwood/tasmanian blackwood OM fan fret baritone and #3 will be german spruce/koa OM.

Looks good. Wouldn't mind seeing a close up of that bridge, which appears to have some nice detail.

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

Very nice indeed!! You know you could try building with some cheaper stuff if your worried about mistakes....although I didn't my own advice! Look forward to the future pictures

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Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

Wow! Nice work and you are moving so fast! Looking forward to seeing more.

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George :-)