Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

At last I have finished the Whatnot guitars. Well one actually the other one is just being buffed and will be finished next week but near enough to finished....after 10 months from the original purchase of the little Brazilian Rosewood Whatnot and the long search for a piece of Brazilian that would be a suitable match for the sides and the construction/lacquer curing time etc here it is. It is a 14 fret Falcate cedar top OM and a Bolt on Bolt Off neck from "the book". The back and sides as well as the bridge plate, bridge and fingerboard are all old growth Brazilian. It has a Brazilian mahogany neck and linings, a laminated NGR tail block and beautiful snakewood as the trim. Also it has a compensated nut and saddle from "the book" too but I confess that the quick and dirty/method with even less mathematics was the one that I used... It works very well. Actually I used a slight variation on it in that I made a special straight edge that was exactly the scale length and used that to measure the extra length needed to compensate each string and then halved that and applied the half to each end. I will do a post just on that some time.
This is my first rosewood guitar that I have ever made being a bit of a blackwood builder as I have a lot of it from the trees that I have harvested over the years. I have a recording of it done quickly when a friend who plays much better than me came over so I will try to put that up when I can....I am mot really sure about how to to that so any advice on uploading a sound clip would be appreciated.
Anyway I hope you like it. I photographed it at sunset which cast some nice warm light on it and created some nice effects.

Cheers

John

Oh, Yes....The Acoustic performance figures just off the dyno are....T(1,1)1 100Hz, T(1,1)2 181Hz and T(1,1)3 223Hz.

John,

You must be stoked , I know how long and how much planning went into your Holy grail model , and mate it looks the Biz .

Congratulations it's a stunner .

a much better use of BR than a wotnot.

Cheers,

Looks beautiful John.
Damn that's one shiny finish

Damn Fine John! Good to hear you got enough RW.

Thank You Gentlemen....

I worked out how to upload to Youtube with the soundfile.....I think the quality of the guitar comes through well....

http://youtu.be/kjpYDBsXd2M

Many thanks to my friend Kyle who came over last Sunday afternoon to record a quick track.....

John

WHAT! not another inspirational instrument from the Buckham brigade.

WOW....Awesome work Wiley fox, er, Woodrat

Gaz

Ya gotta be happy with that guitar, looks all quality in every respect. Good work.

Nice work, John. Great video, too!

Beautiful Work John A perfect match with the Brazillian and Snakewood

Nice one John, looks beautiful. You should put some pictures and a link to the sound clip on your web page. Is it sold?

Peter

What a great job you did on that. Thanks for the vid too, well done.

Great looking guitar John.
It is good to see the wood passed on to a higher spiritual level. Now, what is it not? It is not a whatnot!

That's a great looking guitar. My only criticism is that it's so shiny it's hard to see it through all the reflections. Lots to be proud of there.

Whoah that's what we're talking about now John, mighty fine work. So it must be nearly time to start slicing up some more antique furniture?

Steve

Kamusur wrote:Whoah that's what we're talking about now John, mighty fine work. So it must be nearly time to start slicing up some more antique furniture?

Steve

Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen for your kind words......

Is it sold.....? Answer.....not yet but I have someone very interested at the moment who has first refusal.

Its twin sister will be finished towards the end of the coming week too....the only difference she has a Brazilian Rosewood headplate instead of a Snakewood one.

Steve.....there is no antique furniture that is safe from the WoodRat!

John

Ooooh shiny.

Lovely work John. Some interesting grain in those whotnot back pieces. Great little video as well - nice to document the history of how it came to be.

I wonder if you would have any trouble sending or travelling overseas given where the timber came from? Perhaps a CD of the origin of material in the case with the guitar may assist? But then, you'd probably still need the pre-cites documentation. The CD would just assist your application for the certification I'm thinking.

Anyway, a nice adaptation of a whotnot, thong inlay and all.

Jeremy.

Hi Jeremy, Thanks....I have a pre-CITES permit application in at the moment for the material. The people in the Wildlife permit department of the Department of Sustainability, Water, Environment, Population, Heritage and the Arts (thats a mouthful for the people answering the phones!) have been very helpful and the process seems to be less daunting that I first thought. The lady in Permits said to me that the main problem is lack of documentation but I have a lot of documentation for my pieces so I am hoping for a smooth process. The document is a 7 page application that is downloadable from their website. Just Google "pre-CITES permit" and it will take you there. I think it would be informative to read for most luthiers. Pre-CITES permits are free of charge too.

Cheers

John