Official Luthiers Forum!

Here's a fingerstyle guitar, finished recently and shown at the GAL, that uses a set of Uncle Bob's stellar Black Limba.
This guitar will probably get me booted out of the honorary British Luthier's club, as it shows little restraint, and virtually no subtlety.
Que sera....

B/S--Black Limba
Top--Bearclaw Sitka
Neck--Mahogany/Bocote
Bindings--Bocote
Rosette--Black Limba bordered w/ green ab.









And this next shot shows a seldom used inlay, which I call a "Victorian Monogram". Cut from a single piece of pearl.
It obviously works best when inlayed into ebony!




Again, thanks for looking.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Lucious, Steve! Congrats!

Any chance we could see a rosette closeup?

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Dang Steve! Kickin them out!

Looks awesome!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Sweeeeet! And restraint is overblown!

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Steve! I love the back stripe.... I like the whole guitar... But, The center stripe is a prize-winner!
Beautiful guitar!!

long

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"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

Wow Steve,

That is such a beautiful guitar. I love the Limba and Bocote together and how classy is that stopped centre trim on the back. I am going to steal that idea down the track, no two ways about it.

Beautiful work and I think the Brits will agree.

Cheers

Kim

Beautiful, Steve. I'm with Bob and Kim. I love the stopped back strip. Great eye, there! Really draws the focus and highlights that beautiful wood. Outstanding job. I'm guessing Colin, Dave, Sam, et al. will forgive the shell, just this once!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Tastefully done!! I happen to love Black Limba!

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Steve - Gorgeous guitar! Do you think you could bring it next Saturday? I would love to see it in person.

Thanks,

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Steve Walden
Aspiring Builder,
Bartlesville, OK

Absolutly beautiful!!!!!!!!!!
The back inlay is unique & gorgeous!!!

How does it sound & play ?

How about some specs?
back thickness etc...........

Mike

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Mike Collins

Absolutly beautiful!!!!!!!!!!
The back inlay is unique & gorgeous!!!

How does it sound & play ?

How about some specs?
back thickness etc...........

Mike

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Mike Collins

Whoa there Nellie

Steve - I don't know why you are worried, it looks great to me. I love Uncle Bob's Black Limba (or rather my youngest daughter does as she purloined the guitar I made from it ). That's very classy indeed and the backstrip is pure genius, As usual you have a great eye for wood combinations - to me the hardest thing to match with Black Limba is the neck and yours works very well.

Lovely, lovely - keep them coming!!

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Daaaang, Steve! That is awesome. I really dig the back strip.

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

sooooo nice, that black limba set is special in the extream.

i would love to now you did that center strip or is it a trade secret.

Nice work.

Joel.

Steve, I'll let you off just this once, that is a truly awesome example of the guitar builders art. I've still got a set of Bob's first issue Black Limba and now I'm itching to use it! As others have said that backstrip is a work of inspired genius, I love the way its termination echoes the heel cap shape. I'll let you have all the pearl this time, you've been very restrained recently and as 'subtle' and 'Texan' aren't concepts normally used in the same sentence, you have to revert sometimes. .

That bocote works really well with the limba, I was going to use Macassar, but now....

You know what I think of you as a builder, you haven't let me down. Great stuff.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Well, what can I say... That back-strip is absolutlely killer! Was it to cover something you didn't like in the back plate? I'm guessing you fashioned the strip and then inlayed it, carving the bullet part by hand... Right?

Top drawer, absolutely!

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Hi Steve,

Tastefully understated, restrained, and superbly executed.

Beautiful work Steve and like veryone else I think the back strip is outstanding.

Cheers

Bob

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Bob Connor
Geelong, Australia

What more can I say that hasn't been said already. Beautiful as usual Steve.
You done the Black Limba proud.

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Steve,

This is just another one of your great looking guitars that make me jelous of luthers with talent.

You have certainly received a lot of compliments on the back strip and deservedly so. The back strip is a thing of beauty. In fact I would say it is perfect on this guitar. The length, shape and material give a balance to the back that couldn’t exist with any other treatment. I have gone back and looked at the photo several times and I can’t imagine you doing the back any other way. You really have an eye and imagination. My imagination and eye wane when used with my tools and skills so my end results are not quite to your level.

Philip

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aka konacat

If you think my playing is bad you should hear me sing!
Practice breeds confidence and confidence breeds competence. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in practice.

Speaking as a Brit, I would have to say it's gaudy, over-embellished, and overall lacking in good taste. To borrow from Prince Charles' words, frankly, it's a monstrous carbuncle.

Good job I'm an EX-Brit then ......I think I saw this one at GAL - it's a beaut Steve! I never noticed the back strip before the others pointed it out - that just shows you how well it works as a design element. Excellent stuff. Keep 'em coming!

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Nice Steve.

Gentlemen, my sincere thanks! You are quite kind... even you, Dave F

Some answers:

JJ, here's a closer shot of that rosette:



Steve, I'm afraid I can't bring this guitar, as it's already hanging in its new home. I'll see if I can scrounge up something else.

Mike--how does it sound and play? It plays pretty nicely, as we set it up for fingerstyle work, and I didn't botch the neck too badly this time! My favorite comment about the sound came from Mike Doolin at the GAL convention--he said the trebles were 3-D. (I wonder if he meant one needs special glasses to listen to it?)

Joel--the center seam dart is no secret, just a bit of effort. Alain guessed the steps, but let me reiterate: fashion the end of the strip to whatever shape desired. Carefully miter your purfling, if any, to "wrap" around the strip. Just as carefully glue them on w/ CA. Determine where the strip needs to terminate in the back, and draw a reference mark. When routing, I clamped a stop in place to prevent my router from going too far "north" if you will. The result is a squarish channel that ends shy of the heel joint area.
The next fun part is laying the strip in place, tracing around the dart end, and excavating the curved section by hand.
---or--- just program all this into your CNC.

Alain--was I trying to hide something? No, I was looking at those strong brown lines in the back, converging toward the heel cap, and the idea struck. It's the closest I've ever gotten to James Krenov's approach, where the wood "speaks" to him, and nearly dictates what the design should be. Maybe he's right?

Again, my sincere thanks to all, and especially to the Brits for being so tolerant.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Holy Moly. You've outdone yerself, Steve!

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Looks really nice....except for umm.....the scratch in the back up by the binding on the upper bout in the pic labeled "BLCenter Seam.jpg", to the right of the neck heel. Gorgeous though...
(please don't get mad at me for pointing it out!)

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."