Acoustic Guitar Construction

John, Have you taken over the website? I have not been on in years. I was a close friend of Ken's, he actually worked for me prior to his retirement. I helped Ken's wife Laura part-out the business, but not built any additional instruments is some time. I have had to move a few times and do not have...

I am in the process of moving and having the wonderful job of packing up my shop. During this process I have noticed that there are many items that I packed over 15 years ago and not used. At one point I did a lot of cabinet and furniture making, but since have confined my activities to smaller proj...

I used "Hickory" Solar-Lux Dye on the neck. This color is basically a blackish-brown. The African Mahogany already has plenty of red tones in it and I only wanted to darken the neck. Being a small surface I used an Air Brush to apply the Dye. This gives me lots of control and allows me to ...

I'll have to enlist one of my friends to play on a clip. I'm a much better woodworker than guitarist!

Just finished the build of a Ditson 12 Fret Dreadnought. I saw the Figured Black Walnut at the local store where I get most of my wood from. I joke that the wood spoke to me and said "I need to be a guitar". Having great luck with Walnut I had no reservations. The only draw back was the bo...

The Backing Board is used for two reasons. First, it provides a means to push the neck glue-up across the router table, insuring that it is also against the fence. Sort of like a mitre gage without a slot in the table. Second, it backs up the neck glue-up to minimize tear-out at the end of the cut. ...

A stacked heel, or stacked neck blank is used almost exclusively when dealing with Quarter-Sawn material. As Ken pointed out this is normally combined with a scarf joint in the Head Stock area. The advantage is that you can build up a neck blank with 1 - 1.5" quarter sawn stock. This is a very ...