Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Doesn't seem long since I put up pictures of my first guitar. Well here is the second. Woods are Carpathian Spruce top, Tassie Oak back and sides, Qld Maple neck, Myrtle rosette, Indian Rosewood bindings, Ebony fingerboard, tuning knobs, headstock overlay and bridge. Bolt on neck, varnish finish. Made in the same style as the first, i.e. simple and elegant and sounding great. This one I think is a significant improvement on the first, so I am over the moon about the sound. Deep rich sweet tone, very nice indeed. The Tassie Oak is from Bunnings.

Looking at those pictures was a good way to start my Sunday afternoon.

Peter
Your guitars are really looking good. All that mando experience obviously translates straight into guitar building.

Tassie Oak from Bunning's??!! How many pieces did you have to sort through to find some good enough for luthery? Anyway, I guess the savings can go towards those nice looking (but pricey) Schertlers. Are you happy with them?

Very nice looking instrument.
cheers

Mark

The Schertlers are well worth what you pay. Very smooth and accurate, they put the Gotah's on my reference guitar to shame.

I have quite a bit of really nice Tassie Oak from Bunnings, probably enough for 6 guitars. About 5% is worth a second look, so you need to sort through about 20 planks before finding one that is interesting. About 1/3 of the interesting ones I would be happy to use in a musical instrument.

Peter

No 2 turned out very nicely Peter. I really like its simplicity, it's understated elegance.

What are you going to do for no 3?

No 3 is going to be Indian Rosewood. This second guitar has some changes I made that I thought might improve the sound, but since I also changed the back wood I changed more than one thing at once so can't be sure what changed the sound. I suspect both, but need to be sure. No 3 will have the same woods as no 1, but will incorporate the changes I made in no 2. The changes are mostly in the way I braced and tuned the top. I have been doing Chladni free plate tuning with mandolins for a long time and have been using it with the guitars, but it was new ground for me. Fortunately the ground work has already been done on guitars by Alan Carruth so is a heck of a lot easier than it was on mandolins where I had to do all the basic ground work. It was a massive amount of work that is now published in the Journal of the AAMIM and the papers are available on my web site if onyone is interested. Flat top guitars are different from mandolins, but the principles are the same. It has taken me 2 guitars to fully understand the differences. It is interesting that Alan Carruth seems to have managed to gain quite a deal of respect for his work in the guitar world, but that has not happened in the mandolin world just yet. There are too many ignorami dismissing it as voodoo at the moment so I am afraid it is an on going battle, and sometimes I feel like a broken record. However, it is new to mandolins so I guess that is bound to happen.

Beautiful Peter, great looking guitar.

All of the bling is in the craftsmanship and there is loads there to greet the eye.

Well Done

Cheers

Kim

peter.coombe wrote: Made in the same style as the first, i.e. simple and elegant and sounding great.

Simple..elegant..... and sounding great. My idea of a perfect guitar.

What Can I Say That hasnt been said except BEAUTIFULL

Peter, what can you tell me about that rosette,I was planning something exactly like that my for first acoustic.I have a sheet of Australian red cedar that is only 1mm thick or less,it's like paper, but I thought it may be good for that type of rosette.

The rosette is a colourful piece of Myrtle that I sliced in the bandsaw and sanded to around 2.5mm thick in the drum sander. Cut the disk using the same jig I used to cut the rosette channel. At 2.5mm thick it is reasonably robust and stiff, and there is no danger of it falling apart. Myrtle is easy to work, so the Demel cut the disk quite nicely. It was glued in around 1mm proud of the Spruce surface and sanded level in the drum sander. 1mm is pretty thin and would be quite a bit more difficult to do becasue you have not much room for error and the disk would be very fragile. If it was me I would probably glue it to a base so it won't disintegrate when you cut the disk, and you would need to be careful about the depth of the channel because you can't sand much off. A solid piece of wood is much easier to work with since you can cut it thick and sand it down after gluing.

I have some stunning Tiger Myrtle veneer that I would like to eventually use in a rosette, but have not used it because I wanted to get some practice first on making wood rosettes. Can't afford to ruin it. This is also only 1mm thick, so I have the same tricky problem. Fortunately I have heaps of lovely figured Myrtle wood to practice with so I'm not going to sweat over the veneer for a while.

peter.coombe wrote:The Schertlers are well worth what you pay. Very smooth and accurate, they put the Gotah's on my reference guitar to shame.

Peter

They are great looking tuners, was going to ask what they are but now know.
Where they the gotoh 510s you compared them to or just the standard line?
Do you remember how much you payed a set?

Guitar looks great

The Gotoh's I have no idea because I did not make the guitar I used as a reference. Prices of the Schertlers are on the Stew Mac web page.

Gotoh 510's really are an 'excellent' tuner but you do pay for the privilege. I do not doubt Peter's judgement one bit when he states that the Schertlers put the reference guitar Gotohs to shame, but it is hard to imagine that any tuner could be 'that' much better than 510's for smoothness of operation, especially their 22:1 variation which really are quite incredible. With that I am happy to assume that those on Peter's reference guitar had been standard edition Gotohs. Must also add that looking back over the images the Schertlers really do suit Peter's work because they are understated, very refined and completely classy.

Cheers

Kim

Oops apologies, after putting on the reading glasses, they are in fact Grover tuners, not Gotoh's.

Kim wrote:G Must also add that looking back over the images the Schertlers really do suit Peter's work because they are understated, very refined and completely classy.

Cheers

Kim

I agree. The guitar looks awesome and the tuners look great. I reckon they would look good on an electric as well.

Nice wood from bunnings as well

All I know is 12 or so chords on the guitar and that doesn't hack it. Finally managed to get Ray into the workshop and in front of the microphone. At least he can play it. Here is a sound clip of this guitar.

http://www.petercoombe.com/Guitars/Soun ... 20Mist.mp3

That's the worst sounding mandolin I've ever heard!!

Nice one Peter (& Ray)

Lovely Looking and Sounding guitar Peter!

John