Curly Mango Inauguration

[Ken Hundley]

Well, I finally strung her up! You've all been hearing about and seeing pictures of the Curly Mango guitar....the original inspiration for my unusual OM design....I finished a Padauk version first, but this design was the original inspiration. This is also one of the "Squirrel" guitars that was damaged.....9 different cracks, complete refinish. FInally got her set up and strung up today! Still some work to do, but the sound is fantastic! Here's the specs!

Curly Mango back and sides
Locally purchased (Slight Bearclaw) Sitka Spruce
Wenge binding and tail wedge
5 peice hanalei moon neck, mahogany, curly maple, ebony neck,w ith ebony fingerboard
abalone side dots
ebony bridge
curly mango bridge plate
back has custom laminated braces wenge/spruce/wenge
top has custom laminated braces, spruce/wenge/spruce, custom brace layout
24.9 scale length....not totally satisfied with it.....
unbleached bone nut and saddle
finished with 2 coats bullseye sanding sealer, colortone waterbased pore filler, tru-oil.....stripped, then refinished after damage repair with colortone wb pore fill, with EM6000 body, and tru-oil neck and headstock.

Has similar bass presence to my jumbo, just "breathier", like the padauk om was. Crystal clear trbles, but banjo-y midrange. Will need to work on that, but overall, far better than I expected after all the damage and mistakes of 2.5 years!

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Video Added: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q21QnzisFrM

[Ken Hundley]

Action is still a little high on the treble side, and the bridge needs to be shaved down a bit on the base side ( the saddle pretty much disappears into the bridge). I need to slot the bridge to get better angle on the strings across the saddle, but overall, it plays nicely, beautiful and unusual tone (pretty much what I have come to expect throug this design), but still needs a littl tweaking here and there...what project doesn't?

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Lessons learned: The tuners are too close together. It's very easy to inadvertently bump one when turning another. Also, the curlycue at the end of the fretboard is an interesting design, but if you're going to do a cutaway, you'll want access to the frets in the area that's been cut out. I am not much of a soloist, but I have already tried to hit notes in that area, and realized the shortcomings. Also, don't let a project sit for 2.5 years. Start it, finish it, and play it or move on. Too much potential for damage or justplain what the hell were you thinkin when you came up with this concept.

All in all, it far surpassed my expectations in sound. Still some work to be done, but all basically fine tuning. I'll record something before the coming week is out.

[Tony_in_NYC]

Looks great! But where are the pics of the back and sides? Curly mango? All I see is clawy sitka!

[Ken Hundley]

Patience...my young padawan....patience. I haven't finished posting everything!

Funny, my wife always repeats the old saying "Patience is a virtue......". I always respond with "Patience is a waste of time." Still haven't figured out who's right. Anyway, some more photos of earlier aspects:

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[Ken Hundley]

Couple more photos:

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[johnnparchem]

Nice inovative work. It would be interesting to see the chlandi patterns to see how much of the top vibrates with your brace pattern. It is a cool looking guitar inside and out.

[Tony_in_NYC]

Beautiful. Very nice work Ken!

[David L]

Beautiful mango and five piece neck!

David L

[seanbig]

Ken,

That is a beautiful guitar. Is the soundhole on the side so that you can brace the top differently? What is the idea behind moving the soundhole? I thought maybe it was to prevent feedback, but it does not appear to have electronics.

Cool guitar.

[darren]

Very cool Ken. Very cool.