I thought that you might enjoy seeing some progress pics of the final set-up of this guitar.
Here is my Stealth bridge design which is also fitch match BRW as are the 3 degree, non-slotted BRW bridge pins. Although these photos are taken under shop lights and rather suck but there is a high gloss on the bridge and pins. This is done with micro-mesh pads. I chuck each pin in the cordless drill and hit them with the consecutive finer grits of micro-mesh. I can do a set of pins in 5 minutes easy. I know it's pretty anal to polish bridge pins but this is one of a host of very small details that no one will probably ever notice that I do when setting up a guitar.
Here is a shot of the guitar - the back and sides, fret board, rosette, butt wedge, bridge, bridge pins, bridge plate, head plate, and heel cap are all BRW. The top is some very stiff adi and about .090 thick and thinner around the edges.
Here is the back and I was finally able to take a flash picture and kill the glare. this finish is a VERY high gloss and difficult to photograph with out natural light - difficult for me anyway. Notice too the Stealth bindings, also BRW, forgot to mention that above. To me, when using iconic guitar wood like Honduran Mahogany, BRW, and Adi I think it's important, at least to my design eye, to be repetitive with these very few design elements. So..... one of my goals on this guitar was to only use three different woods for the entire guitar.
Here is the neck joint, very tight and amazingly the Honduran mahogany and the BRW are near a perfect match in color - go figure. The neck is a three piece Mahogany laminate with black fiber in between the laminations.
The fret board is also a custom made, faux bound BRW board. It is flat sawn but that is what I wanted to use this very dramatic piece of wood. I just oiled it so it has a sheen what will last for a few months and helps to condition the fret board for string benders like me.
The tuners are Waverly with black ebony knobs which was a toss up for me. The black does match the black in the fret board very well and hides the brashness of gold metal.
The only problem that I see so far is not really a problem but with my experience with Adi tops, about 6 now, they take forever to open up. So I have a thousand watt NHT watt sub woofer with adjustable cross over and I plan on putting it in a closet with this guitar and blasting the thing for a couple of days to speed up the opening up process of the top.
When I get it completed and have a sunny day here in the now frozen tundra of Michigan I will take some sunny pics in my sun room and show you the completed guitar. Also I am meeting with David Collins, Lance Kragenbrink, and JJ Donahue next week so perhaps those bloaks will provide some unbiased testicle-monieals....
Thanks for looking and this is one of the happiest times in my life when a newly born guitar is about ready to sing.
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