Robbinst

I'll be honest, at the time I was an apprentice still so I was broke but I wanted to gain experience and build my designs so I chose woods I could afford. Bloodwood and hickory are cheap and readily available so that's what I went with. Both guitars sound amazing. Crisp, clear, balanced, loud, and very responsive. I used 3 plys on my sides. Both inner and outer layers are hickory and the middle ply is either maple or mahogany, I forget what I had laying around for that one. The back and sides do play a role in the overall tone for sure but will not make or break it as far as sound goes. My main concern is the material properties of the top. I could put an amazing top on any kind of back and sides and it would be a great instrument but I could put an okay top on a set of Brazilian and it would probably never be anything spectacular.

Its been awhile. Here's some pics of that hickory guitar and where I'm at now!

Yes it's allumilite resin. I use a pressure chamber to crush any bubbles rather then degassing, all though I would like to start vacuuming in the future prior to mixing just to ensure 100% bubble free pieces

So the bloodwood acoustic had been wrapped up by the end of August just in time for the Northwoods seminar at Galloup guitars. This is a 4 day seminar where the best of the best get together to learn, to teach, and to catch up on what everyone is doing. It is held once a year and is really something special. I was able to hand my guitar off to names such as Charles Fox, Tom Ribbecke, Michi Matsuda, Dan Erlewine, and TJ Thompson to have them critique my work. It was very exciting and they all had good things to say about not only the aesthetics but the sound it produced. I was also able to listen to a truly talented fingerstyle player take it for a spin and that just blew my mind. A video was taken of the player, Kinloch Nelson, trying it out but it was unfortunately lost in the thousands of photos the photographer was taking of the event (heartbreaking). I'm still hoping it pops up one day but it seems unlikely at this point. Here is link to the seminars face book page if anyone would like to know more about what takes place. https://www.facebook.com/NorthwoodsSeminar?fref=ts Here is my buddy and fellow apprentice, Matt, trying out the newly completed build The positive feed back has only made me more motivated to continue building and I am well into my second acoustic which is a Hickory L00! This build includes a sapwood hickory back and laminated sides with a sitka spruce top, mohogany neck, ebony fingerboard and binding, and some more of that specially made wood for rosette and peghead adornments!

I tried mixing and it didn't look right. Someone suggested black buttons with Crome tuners but I like the black too much to order more parts. Yes the bridge is asymmetrical on purpose

Thanks for the feed back guys! I'm working late nights and even though I could probably get this thing done in a matter of hours, sleep keeps winning that battle. Here are the last few pics before final assembly! The sound port door with freshly sprayed finish. Still gotta wet sand and buff Finalized bridge and glue up I was torn between black or chrome tuners for this build and while I like the picture I took of the chrome ones better, the black ones look much better in person. I like the stealthy look that doesn't distract for the peghead inlay.

Here's a few more pics guys, shes almost done!

Please by all means continue with the discussion! This thread is just a spot for me to post all my pics and not clutter the forum. What ever discussions branch off from them is just an added bonus and they are more then welcome! The super soft interests me a lot because I do have a cutaway design I would like to use but it involves a very tight radius and I want to stay away from a florentine if possible. I think I might give it a shot! I've got some black limba back and sides that I'm itchin to use so maybe I'll jump on that once I get this build in the booth.

I've done some research and found people use high grade ammonia to bend wood but it changes the color and I wasn't impressed with the results I got. I never heard of the plasticizers you mentioned though, might be worth some tests.

Blood wood is a b****, plain and simple. It's absolutely gorgeous and explodes when any finish is applied but getting it to the spray booth can be a nightmare. I was forced to do a laminated back because the plates had slight cups and when trying to flatten them out to join, I heard the crack of doom. Blood wood is dense, heavy, a pain to work with, and not ideal for back and sides. I'm worried that my back will dampen some energy in the system because of its physical properties. I will definitely avoid this wood for the body on future builds. All that being said, I totally get the desire to push through the difficulties and get to the spray booth. I didn't have any issues with bending the sides. I used a fox style bender with nicely quartered grain cooking at about 300 degrees until I could hear the water boil rapidly and then I bent as slow as I could. I also used a double layer of spring steel to support the bend. As for the cut away I have no experience bending that tight of a radius with this wood although it sounds like it's as difficult as I would expect. I suppose my advice would be to go the non cutaway route if possible or to consider a pieced cut away such a a flourintine variation. These would change your plans a bit but might be the only way to get the blood wood to cooperate short of soaking and cooking the hell out of it and hoping for the best when you pull that tricky bend.

Yes I try to keep the grain orientated in a similar pattern but other then that it's kinda random, I don't want it to be too organized and not look like an organic break.

Thanks for the kind words Scott! The dangus wood is a variation of resin wood turning blanks. Wood craft sells them as fijiwood. I found a dealer that was making nice stuff so I asked about buying some to use in my guitars. He saw my work and said something along the lines of trading material for a guitar, so I light heartedly said that would be a lot of material. Well he didn't like that answer and stopped responding to my emails and wouldn't let me buy anything so out of spite I made a pressure chamber and now make my own material using various wood/ resin combos and use them in my guitars as a way to stand out from traditional wood or shell adornments. This guitar used a peice of blood wood that was shattered under 12 tons of force and placed in the pressure chamber with black pearl resin to create a block of material to be cut up as needed.

Once I'm closer to finishing im gonna install the door with a knob, probably an ebony bridge pin. It's the perfect size and shape. I thought about magnets but then you have to worry about loosing peices I think, unless there's another way that I'm not picturing?

The link at the end of the last post was a video of the sound port perfling I made the end wedge on this and when I sanded it flush I ended up with a poor miter and a large gap so I cut it out and gave it a second go I was much happier with this one Next it was time to bind...in ebony! Detail shot That's all I have for ya at the moment but thanks for looking, I should have this finished up in a few weeks so stay tuned!