Acoustic Guitar Construction

Hello all, I recently became reacquainted with this forum after many years of inactivity and thought I'd share one of my recent builds. I had joined this forum 10 years ago when I was 15 after having purchased a binding jig from the late Ken C. After years of building on my own, learning from books and forums like this, I took a semester off from university to study classical guitar making in Spain. I never went back to college and instead studied under two different classical guitar makers in the deep south of Andalusia. After a few years of bartending, throwing all my money at my shop and occasional building I decided to take the plunge and build classical guitars full time right before the pandemic broke out in February 2020. This guitar was built during my annual 3 month working holiday to one of my mentor's workshops in Granada Provence Spain. I'm currently French polishing the instrument in my shop here in New York.

The client who commissioned this guitar asked for padauk and cedar, a combination I had not yet tried but knew could be great thanks to instruments I've played built by friends and colleagues. The client is an avid video game player so I decided to make this abstract herringbone central theme in the rosette where the points chase each other circularly to emulate the loading symbol of a video game.




For the bracing I went with my personal interpretation of the Bouchet/Granada 5 fan/bridge bar system



The head shape of this one differs from the other guitars I've made taking influence from a church I saw in Malaga while visiting a friend one weekend



Into the solera



Peones and peone de barre installed



Back braced



And assembled

I decided to make marquetry purfling for this guitar after seeing a Santos Hernandez from the 30's come into the shop





Fretboard glued



Then the bridge meets the top



Then frets and a neck carve. Starting to look like a guitar!



Bindings are rounded over and we're nearly ready to prep for varnish








Now the French polishing begins

Excellent Brian, and that rosette is just plain brilliant.
Herman

Wow! That is a nice looking guitar. I love your rosette design. Very nice detail throughout the build. Looking forward to seeing it finished and strung up.

Yeah great execution on how all ties together. I too like that rosette and the sapwood on the back.
Mighty fine

Kevin