#11, Wabi-sabi Guitar
Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2023 6:04 pm
Numero Once: Wabi-sabi Guitar
Last year while building my 10th guitar, a prototype for a small parlor model, I was also building a maple body, #11, with African mahogany bindings that had an honest-to-God Adirondack spruce soundboard like vintage pre-war Martins used to use while it was available. I bought the 2 book-matched billets for the soundboard at a price I could afford from my luthier friend, Kjell, here. He bought up the entire stock of a deceased luthier up in Grand Rapids and then sold off parts of it to pay for the ones he wanted to keep.
This was going to be a 12-fret to the body, but long scale, Norman Blake variation of my Orchestra Model design which is basically identical to the Santa Cruz I own and is in its turn almost the same silhouette and depth as a Martin. This body also featured a slightly wider X brace than my 14-fret previous builds, as I’d done that for guitar #9, another 12-fret, and liked the sound.
Then I started on the neck, African mahogany with maple. I rout the neck blank to the finished and attached fretboard, Indian rosewood in this case. Do this on a sheet of particle board on sawhorses for a router table with a bit that makes the neck side flush with the fretboard edge. But the pass for the second side I must have gotten it rocked slightly on the 16” radius fretboard away from the bit and it gouged both the neck blank and the fretboard. Photo, attached
This was fairly disheartening, as about the same time I had my #6 and #9 builds down at a new guitar store for sale, and the guy had no humidification and they both cracked in ways that well may be beyond my abilities to fix. I was an Art School boy, and every gallery in the world has humidification, not to mention any and all stringed instrument stores or repair shops of my acquaintance. I keep my house at 45% in the winter here in Michigan by a humidifier centrally located in the dining room, about 3 pails of water a day. In the summer, without the forced- air furnace, nature does it. Guitars in the basement are fine year-around.
I left the guitar construction alone and made plans, drawings, bills of materials, etc. for projects to be done to renovate the house we’ve lived in for 20 years. Working with a local builder to do this in phases.
But I finally decided not to go backward, with a new neck, but just go forward. Had a lot of time getting the neck that far. So I routed a slot with a micro-taper like gunsights use or guitar end grafts. No Indian rosewood scrap on hand, but some purpleheart, also hard. Used that. Photo, attached
Sent a photo of the latter to one of my artist friends, Ahde, and he emailed back that it was kintsugi, like the Japanese do to repair tea bowls, et al. I sent him back email saying that kintsugi is part of wabi-sabi, and that I think wabi-sabi is what defines my approach to luthiery. Still need to finish the neck. And like one of my Texas bosses used to say, “All's we lack is finishing up”
Last year while building my 10th guitar, a prototype for a small parlor model, I was also building a maple body, #11, with African mahogany bindings that had an honest-to-God Adirondack spruce soundboard like vintage pre-war Martins used to use while it was available. I bought the 2 book-matched billets for the soundboard at a price I could afford from my luthier friend, Kjell, here. He bought up the entire stock of a deceased luthier up in Grand Rapids and then sold off parts of it to pay for the ones he wanted to keep.
This was going to be a 12-fret to the body, but long scale, Norman Blake variation of my Orchestra Model design which is basically identical to the Santa Cruz I own and is in its turn almost the same silhouette and depth as a Martin. This body also featured a slightly wider X brace than my 14-fret previous builds, as I’d done that for guitar #9, another 12-fret, and liked the sound.
Then I started on the neck, African mahogany with maple. I rout the neck blank to the finished and attached fretboard, Indian rosewood in this case. Do this on a sheet of particle board on sawhorses for a router table with a bit that makes the neck side flush with the fretboard edge. But the pass for the second side I must have gotten it rocked slightly on the 16” radius fretboard away from the bit and it gouged both the neck blank and the fretboard. Photo, attached
This was fairly disheartening, as about the same time I had my #6 and #9 builds down at a new guitar store for sale, and the guy had no humidification and they both cracked in ways that well may be beyond my abilities to fix. I was an Art School boy, and every gallery in the world has humidification, not to mention any and all stringed instrument stores or repair shops of my acquaintance. I keep my house at 45% in the winter here in Michigan by a humidifier centrally located in the dining room, about 3 pails of water a day. In the summer, without the forced- air furnace, nature does it. Guitars in the basement are fine year-around.
I left the guitar construction alone and made plans, drawings, bills of materials, etc. for projects to be done to renovate the house we’ve lived in for 20 years. Working with a local builder to do this in phases.
But I finally decided not to go backward, with a new neck, but just go forward. Had a lot of time getting the neck that far. So I routed a slot with a micro-taper like gunsights use or guitar end grafts. No Indian rosewood scrap on hand, but some purpleheart, also hard. Used that. Photo, attached
Sent a photo of the latter to one of my artist friends, Ahde, and he emailed back that it was kintsugi, like the Japanese do to repair tea bowls, et al. I sent him back email saying that kintsugi is part of wabi-sabi, and that I think wabi-sabi is what defines my approach to luthiery. Still need to finish the neck. And like one of my Texas bosses used to say, “All's we lack is finishing up”