Here is a grab-bag of stuff that I've been making, on and off, for more than a year, and I think it's time I motivated myself to finish them!
- Works in progress
Flamenco guitars.
The two flamenco guitars have been constructed using a solera (work board) that holds the neck at the correct angle to the body, and I've used the traditional "Spanish heel" method, which is why the bodies are already connected to the neck, without having first been bound. The plan is to have the string height at 7 - 8 mm above the soundboard, immediately in front of the bridge.
- Cypress Flamenco - front
- Cypress Flamenco - back
One of them has been made using Satin Box from the Otways, for no reason other than that it is a pale colour, and hence will be a "blanca" flamenco guitar! The other is from Cypress cut from trees surrounding the Emerald footy oval, which were felled during a renovation around 10 years ago.
- Satin Box Flamenco - front
- Satin Box Flamenco - back
I've also experimented with coloured rings of veneer, in making the rosette. The purfling will thus also be coloured (red, yellow and black).
- Satin Box Flamenco rosette
1920 Martin Ditson parlour guitar.
The parlour guitar body is made from 40,000 year old Ancient Kauri dug up from a bog in New Zealand. I found a board of it in a mill on the outskirts of Melbourne. I've used it on other instruments, and it works well as back and sides.
- Ditson Parlour - back
The shape is that from a mould lent to me by Jack Spira who, I'm reliably told, used it to make a guitar for the performer Sting.
- Ditson Parlour - front
I decided that I was going to use a lot of mother-of-pearl, and started designing and making bits of marquetry inlay work for the fingerboard, before I ran out of puff!
- Inlay ideas for Ditson Parlour fingerboard
The bridge, neck and fingerboard are not yet attached to the body; I've placed them loosely together, for the photograph.
Frank.
