www.KitGuitarsForum.com

This is from Walnut we sawed up and dried for years. Redwood was from a salvaged stair tread as far as I can tell.
Humble beginnings This was the top I voiced as part of one of Robbie O’Brien’s online voicing classes.

Ended up being a 13 fret neck join. Design creep during the build, lol.

Evo gold frets
New snakehead headstock design for straighter string pull. Not a kit build and I didn’t do a good job of sharing along the way, but here it is after all the stress and strife.

15 minutes after I delivered it to the new owner, I got this message:”This is the best sounding guitar. Very Cool. “

Proud papa moment right there.

That's a beautiful guitar! Your photos are great, and prompt lots of questions, which I hope you can answer when you have time:
1. The neck looks like softwood?
2. What is the beautiful binding?
3. I am interested to know how you decided to do your bracing this way rather than the popular scalloped bracing - interested because I am doing the same thing on two current guitars.
4. Where did you get the back strip (which is a beautiful treatment) and the fretboard dots?

Thanks for sharing your success - Bruce W.

1. The neck is maple.
2. The neato binding is quartersawn sycamore. Standby for a whole guitar of it, lol.
3. That’s part of Robbie O’s scheme these days. Tapered, not scalloped. And it’s done in stages, ringing/tapping along the way. Produced a very responsive guitar.
4. a) The backstrip was purchased from Klingspors woodworking. Www.woodworkingshop.com They have a variety of patterns. Search for “inlay” on their site. Luthier suppliers like LMI also have some nice stuff. This was cheaper and I chose it in person.
b) The fretboard dots are mosaic pins usually used for knife handles. I’ve used them on my last 3 or 4 guitars. There are a huge variety available on Amazon and knife part suppliers. They come in a 3 or 4 inch long section. Slice off a .060” piece, and there you go. I made a little jig to hold it while slicing to get neater, more parallel slices.

Glad to share. I’ll try to do more along the way on the next ones.

Very nice guitar. I like sycamore alot. I have some but not long enough for binding or sides.

The mosaic pin stock is a clever use for the dots. Looks great. I've used it years ago in my knife making days.

I've also made two OM guitars with walnut and redwood and they've been sweet sounding guitars. A good combination.

Yours looks great. Like the rosette too!!

Kevin

Great looking build, I've got one that is a 13 1/2 or maybe 13 5/8s, build creep is a good of a reason as anything else I can think of.

Bruce,