I had an amazing opportunity to build a guitar for a friend of mine and world renowned tattoo artist Gabriel Tenneson (look him up!). We designed it together with a "fire" theme in mind. He drew up a tattoo style flame that he uses regularly in his work. I implemented it as both the soundport (super fun to buff...
) as well as what turned out to be my favorite inlay I've ever done. The fire theme started with the spalted wood- which was destined for destruction as a piece of firewood before it found its way into this guitar. Then the flame was designed. The back of the headstock- overlaid in ziricote- represents smoke. And finally, the sinker redwood top was chosen for its fire-like color palette.
The inlay was an interesting process. I hand cut the spalted oak center. It was then digitized and the aluminum outline was programmed for my CNC- leaving a gap for filler to form a purfling-like line. Before assembling the piece, I sand shaded the wooden piece to add a burned gradient on its surface. That was an extremely fun process and I'm thrilled with the final product.
Here's how it turned out:
(a few more images can be found on my website)
Well this is a heavy one for me as it represents over a decade of work as well as an end. This is the final guitar I will be building under the semi-professional builder umbrella from which I've been operating for so long. What a beautiful and wonderful journey it has been. I recently spent some time with my first. What a good laugh that was. I can honestly say that this guitar was only possible thanks to my time spent with Sergei de Jonge and the colossal amount of help this forum afforded me over the years. I'm very proud to have this guitar be the final exclamation point at the end of this chapter of my life.
I'm going to spend some time away from building but know that I'll eventually build again at a hobby level. I built a guitar for my sons. Come to find out, my youngest may be a lefty. So I've saved enough supplies to build him his own some day.
I went full time with ELEVATE this year. So now my efforts are 100% committed there. The lutherie community has been such a joy in my life and I couldn't imagine being without it. So while I won't be building much anymore, I'll still be around- just in a different capacity. Thanks to everyone for sharing their knowledge over the years and for supporting ELEVATE. I'm excited for the future.
And here's a video as a reward for sitting thru my waxing: