Chocolate & Guitars

I’m happy to say that I’m moving forward again with the hand crafting of my next guitars. Earlier today I was adding binding to the Macassar ebony fretboards and very much look forward to getting the necks on. Somewhat akin to boatbuilding, when you get the last plank on and realize that now it will float! But crafting guitars involves many steps, perhaps thousands, and many hours of sanding. To paraphrase a line from the beautiful movie Like Water for Chocolate- I make my guitars with “much love.” I’ll be bringing them to the Northeast Guitar Expo in May, upcoming at a new location, (more on that later…) and although they won’t yet be complete, they’ll still turn some heads!

The top row two on either side feature tops from the same flitch of vintage and rare East Indian Rosewood. These two will be sisters- one with grain concave, and one with grain convex, both filled with mood and mystery. The top center has a highly figured and book-matched top of Japanese Tamo wood and goes positively golden when I’ve doused it with Naptha to approximate the look of the wood with a finish.

I’m going to save the full description of the bottom three for another post, but will say that they are of a series looking at counterculture literature from back in the day!