Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

I finally managed to get this little guitar completed today. Couldn't sleep, so was up at 4 am and managed to get it all done by 9 am, except for some final set up. I've got it pretty close now, but will leave it for a couple of weeks to do any final adjustments.

This guitar features the adjustable neck (at least my take on it) from our very lengthy design process from a few months ago. It's also a first for me for a slotted head stock, which I must say is a fair bit more work, but I really love the look, and I think that I'll be doing a lot more of them. Also tried my hand at cutting pearl. Any way, here are the specs.

Back and sides - Sapele
Top - Western Red Cedar
Fret Board - Minnerichi
Bindings - Cheese Wood
Neck - New Guinea Rosewood and Cheese Wood, with 2 carbon fiber rods, no truss rod
Tuners - Schaller
Bridge - Brazilian Rosewood
Finish - Precat Mirotone over WEST Systems Epoxy
Weight - 1428 grams










A beautiful pyramid bridge that Bob Connor sent me to use on this guitar. Thanks very much Bob. It's beautiful.


I loved the Sapele so much that I used the off cuts from the back for headsock veneer.




External adjustment screw.


If you look carefully, you will see how much adjustment is left in the neck. I can crank the neck down so the heel cap touches the body.


Gives you an idea of the size. A 000 in the background

Sensational Allen. It's got a great vintage look to it.

How's it sound?

Thanks Bob. I was really trying for a vintage look to it. The neck was some fairly nice New Guinea Rosewood, that when I started to carve ended up having some bug holes. I thought about tossing the neck, but then after seeing Matthew's picture of that vintage double bass, I decided it gave the guitar an even more vintage/distressed look about it. I'm really glad that I ended up using it, since it suits it so well.

I put some med. gauge strings on it and tuned it to standard tuning. It's really got a great voice. Loud and clear. I really wish I could play worth a damn so I could enjoy it. I'm going to have to make an effort to get better at it.

I also just got StewMac's string action gauge, which is a huge help in getting the action nice and low without any headaches. The humidity has been in the mid 40's here for a few days, so I set the neck at a pretty neutral setting, then set the guitar up for the lowest action I dared to. My thinking is that when it gets nice an humid up here during the summer, I'll have a fair bit of adjustment left in the neck.

G'day Allen,

Beautiful guitar. The slotted headstock is my favourite also! The dragonfly inlay is very special and a credit to you.

Thanks for the pics

Cheers

Alan

Great little guitar Allen, like has already been said the vintage look has really come together well with a great choice of woods. Looks like one of those guitars you just want to keep picking up.

Colin

Yep what a little beauty she is. The bling is all in the wood with no detractions and if anything, the elegant design of the exposed hardware for the neck adjustment only adds to that classy vintage look. Very tasteful design Allen, well done.

Cheers

Kim

Allen,

Sweet little guitar and a nice combination of woods. Is New Guinea Rosewood narra?

She's a beauty, Allen! Really, really nice! Love the wood combination. I'm glad to see the adjustable neck - please keep us informed as you make adjustments. I'm almost hoping for outrageous humidity swings, so you can test it.

As for being happy with your playing, try to play a little bit every day. I'm still not very good, but I do notice that I'm better than I used to be.

Please post a sound clip if you get the chance.

Dennis

Very Cool guitar Allen ! It looks like the kind of guitar you just can't put down.
I bet it's real comfortable to play eh ? It sure is beautiful
Great job building it ! Man, that Sappele is over the top gorgeous !!


Congratulations....

Man, if that guitar was a woman Id be wanting to take it out for a slap up meal and home for sex straight afterwards.

A beautiful instrument.

Cheers Martin

Simply beautiful. I love the vintage, understated elegance. I hope this one is a personal guitar. I know I would hate to part with it.

kiwigeo wrote:Man, if that guitar was a woman Id be wanting to take it out for a slap up meal and home for sex straight afterwards.

A beautiful instrument.

Cheers Martin

High praise indeeed Martin.

Thanks everyone. I'll keep you informed about humidity fluctuations and adjustments.

I saw that Sapele at Don Williams GOOB sale. I couldn't believe how inexpensive it was, but was advertised as only suitable for a size 5. I didn't even know what a size 5 was, but I figured that for that price I'd build some just so I could use the wood.

It's just so small that you hardly notice that your holding it. It's 1 3/4 at the nut and 2 1/4 at the saddle, so pretty standard string spacing. I just can't get over the sound out of such a small instrument.

Dave, yes New Guinea Rosewood is also called Narra. Heaps of it up here. I found a piece in the scrap bin at the Cairns Woodworkers Guild large enough to get 4 necks for a size 5 out of. Great price and nice wood for a neck.

That's a real beauty, Allen. I love the wood also and really like that cheese wood binding you guys use. Very nice look all around.

Ron

Allen,

That little guitar looks great. Nice work!
I agree with others is has a nice vintage look.
Glad to see the adjustable neck in a real build.
I am a fan of Dragonflys also, so I like your Inlay.
Way to go!

Tom

Thanks to everyone for your very gracious comments. It's gratifying to have a design in your head come together well enough that others appreciate what was envisioned.

I'm really torn about whether to keep this one, or let it go to a new home if the opportunity arrises. It really is just one of those guitars that you can't help but want to pick up and give it a play. So perhaps that'll give me the inspiration to practice a lot more.

Very nice guitar Allen. I am not sure I would want to waste time with the slap up meal like Martin though.

But I have the same problem as you, working out if I should let some of my guitars go. As a mad player I go by sound. Its very circular. If it is a really good sounding guitar I want it myself and if its not so good, do i really want someone else to have it as an example of my work? And they also change over time so what if someone called and said, 'man this guitar has opened up really nicely and is a great sounding guitar'. You can't ask for it back can you.
My solution so far is to buy more racks and keep the guitars.
Dom

Definatley keep it Allen . I'm certain it's one you'd really regret losing. It'll also give you an opportunity to see how the adjustable neck works out. Mind telling us what the adjustable system includes by way of hardware etc ? How much did you raise the neck at the body join ?

It really is a beautiful looking little instrument and begs to be played. The Sapele is knockout ! Very very cool Allen !

Lovely,
I really dig the idea of using such a great wood without much added decoration in a small package like this.
Sitting among a group of larger guitars, I am sure this is the one that would be picked up.

The neck has a 19mm tenon that is cut short just a hair above the bottom adjusting screw. The neck is inlet into the body just the thickness of the sides ( .080 ) at the top of the neck and then I beveled the recess to about 7 mm deep at the base of the heel.

I just used the shoulders of the neck block as Grant suggested to set the yaw of the neck. Initially I was just going to use the adjusting screw to hold the neck in place, but I didn't care for the way the neck flop down without the string tension to hold it in place, so I added a standard cross dowel and bolt in the upper position.

I couldn't for the life of me find a metric t-nut in Cairns so I used a fitting for knock down furniture designed for exposed use that has a solid bottom with a allen key fitting in the end. It has a long threaded barrel and I just made sure that the adjusting screw was trimmed to the correct length so it wouldn't bottom out.

I put a bit of epoxy on the barrel and then set it in the neck block. If it ever needs to be replace it shouldn't be too difficult to remove.

I'll add some ideas about my next build on the Adjustable neck thread.

Jeff, I'm going to be displaying this guitar with some of my others so we'll see what the response will be. I suspect that your correct about it, and people will just have to pick it up and see what sounds like.

Hi Allen
Thanks for sharing your work. Wow I love the look of the guitar, I enjoy the challenge of getting a big quality sound out of a small box also. Thats real nice figure in that Sepele. I also agree with all of the above comments. I spent a day and a bit the other weekend jigging up for slotted pegheads, I'm also going to use that style more and wanted it to be easier. Great work.
Taffy

If you can Taffy, would you mind showing us a picture or two of your jig for slotting the headstock. I did mine pretty well by hand, and it's not something that I would want to tackle every day.

Yep can do that Allen, I did photo's of the building process. However I'm having trouble posting pictures, I have tried but got lost in the process, I know it must be easy. Any help appreciated.

Taffy, I just did up a small "how to" on posting a picture to the forum. It's located in the Tutorial section. I hope that this helps out.

Allen , Just a suggestion : leave the heel cap a little longer next time so that it too, goes into the body rebate . This will avoid exposing a 'gap'

I may have this wrong Allen , but by using Grant's top of the heel pivot method ,it seems to me that you have placed the top bolt below the pivot point . This will mean you will have to adjust the top bolt ( internally ) each time you adjust the lower external adjustment screw , or risk snapping the heel/tenon. As I say , I may have this wrong ?