Official Luthiers Forum!

Yeah, I don't mind waiting. I want to hear that guitar too.

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

Sorry, I haven't been able to check in here in a couple of weeks. I probably won't be able to get up to my buddy's studio until sometime in January due to my work schedule and the holidays.

Matt

Finally made it up to my friend's studio yesterday. He was recording another friend of mine so I tagged along and heard her record a demo of her fantastic new song. When she was done, I banged out a couple of very short tracks. The first one is my very poor finger picking and the second is a bit of strumming without a pick. I apologize for the poor playing. No effects of any kind were added to the recordings. Just the guitar exactly the way it sounds. Not sure what mics he used, though.

https://soundcloud.com/mgb1209/sample-1

https://soundcloud.com/mgb1209/sample-2

Matt

Matt,
I'm glad I waited to open the poll... That sounds like quite a nice instrument, and I think the voters needed to hear that. I will try to get the poll open this week.

--Jay

From one NEL guy to another, nice job!
You should be proud of that instrument. The back looks stunning with a finish on it!

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Thanks Don and Jay. It was a fun guitar to build. And it's pretty fun to play it, even if I am a complete hack guitarist.

Matt

I was looking at my profile and saw that this is the thread I've been most active in since I joined all those years ago. I haven't been reading the forum much for the last couple of years but lately I've been getting caught up with everything here and also getting back into building more again. Anyway, I just re-read this thread and thought I'd give an update. This guitar has become my everyday guitar. Of all the ones I've built and kept for myself, this gets played 85% of the time. It's such a fun little guitar to play. I did just have to remove the neck and put a shim in the mortise and refit it to the tenon. It was a little loose and that was causing the neck to pull up. The action was getting a bit too high so I finally had to take the time to fix it. Now it's back to how it was when I strung it up and hasn't moved again in the past few months. This build was fun and the concert at Passim's in Cambridge, MA, was fun. The past two years, Peter Mulvey hasn't had the NEL in to do this event during his Lamplighter Series at Passim's but it's being revived this year. I'll be finishing up a birdseye maple/Sitka dread with walnut trim for it. Gotta polish up the finish next week. It's a gift for my older brother, who really likes dreads. Otherwise, I wouldn't be building another dread. And, if you also re-read the entire thread, I'll update that my Mom just passed 5 years cancer free, which is the best news of all!

Matt

Matt

I wasn't here in 2014 to follow your thread the first time, but I looked at it just now. Very nicely conceived and built. I have had a birch guitar in the back of my head for a while and you just kicked it into the frontal lobe.

Very glad to hear about your mom - sweet success after a lot of hard work I am sure.

You mentioned early on that the later L-00 body was for a 14 fret neck - below is a picture showing 3 L-00's (internet said all 3 are Nick Lucas Specials). On the left is the early, pre-1929 smaller body size, the second one is your body shape with a 12 fret neck, and the one on the right is yours with a 14 fret neck. There was a lot going on at that transition period between the two body styles - sound hole size, sound hole location, scale length, bridge location, bridge shape, 12/13/14 frets clear, body depth, so in typical Gibson fashion, anything you do has a precedent. Dylan played a 13 fret 1929 version of the later body Nick with a stripped/natural top for a while.

Nick Lucas liked the early shape so well he had a couple built for friends as late as 1935 - and it my favorite having built 3 of my 9 to this shape. And my justification for not having mirror gloss finishes on the few instruments I have built is that Nick did not want the stage lights to reflect in his audience's eyes - even though I have never had an audience of more than 3 grandchildren.

Keep up the good work, and more pictures please.

Ed

Thanks, Ed. This was the third L-00 I built, all based roughly on the Grellier plans. It's the plan of a 1940 L-00. I bought the mold and bending form from Blues Creek, which was the same shape, just a little bit larger than the plans. The plans call for 14 frets. The first one I made was for my niece and is a 14 fret. EIR and Adirondack Spruce. It turned out really well. The second was for a friend's daughter and I decided to make it a 12 fret without adjusting the shape of the body. It moved the bridge down and made it sound really nice and sweet. It was Curapay back and sides with Redwood top. I liked it so much I decided I needed one, too. It worked out to be for this build and for the Peter Mulvey show. I'm about to start another one out of Koa and Engelmann Spruce for my nephew. Maybe I'll get it done in time for Christmas, maybe it'll be for his birthday next June. Probably for his birthday, knowing me.