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Seeing as my luthier day job has ground to an absolute halt at least for the time being. I figured that the best thing would be to make the guitar I've been designing in my head for a long time.

Some notes on inspiration. I play almost 100% fingerstyle guitar but when it comes to guitars in general I love big powerful strummers/flatpickers. J200s, pre-war J35s and other large Gibson acoustics are among my favorites. I also love the Larson Brothers Prairie State super jumbo and other large guitars they made.
That being said this design will be heavily built towards the heavy hitter/flatpicker types, and if it happens to work for fingerstyle then so be it but that's not my goal. My wife says "You just want to make a cowboy cry when he hears it". I haven't settled on a permanent name for the body shape yet.

I'll forego listing all the specs save for the lower bout width which will be 17.5" which makes this a big hoss.

The body shape was something that I thought about for a long time. And every time I'd draw up an idea it was just plain ugly. So I decided to take the closest body shape that currently exists and modify it to suit what I wanted. The OM shape has wonderful curves and appeal. So I bought a bending mold set from John Hall and did some geometry (by that I mean I just moved the lower bout portion apart till I got the width I wanted) which gives me a pretty pleasantly wide body with widths and measurements that keep things in good relation with each other. John's molds are very nice too so I can recommend them highly.



To keep them at width I cut a little wedge and then screwed the two sides together along with the wedge.



And the wood for the back. Sides are heavily birdseye'd the full length as well.



I was considering cutting out the staining in the middle of the back and then use the cutoffs from the upper bout to make "wings" for the edges. A 4 piece back doesn't really bug me at all.

If anyone knows how to get rid of the mineral deposits like that then please chime in. This is going to be alot of fun, I'm all hand tools for this one so it's going to be fun. Plus I'm a little concerned about humidity in my apartment as I can't really control it super well right now, I'll figure something out.

So here's to starting, first thing I did was select some madi rosewood for the bridge and headstock overlay, also cut the tailblock to get things rolling.



More to come. I'm pretty excited about all this.

17 1/2" lower bout will take a player with long arms and a flat belly. Nice project!

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Looking great Dan, very cool.

Thinking outside the box, but at the same time having knowledge is a beautiful thing. I'd like to see how it goes along.

I'm not sure about the stain, but I've always found that defects, and even things I WANT to show up, sometimes get less noticeable after varnish. But if you are REALLY off the wall, you could use the taper that generated your outline, and cut the center out at that angle, and fill in with something dark; if you have something.

Sorry, It's your dream, not mine. You'll find answers about the stains.

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Why be normal?

Dan, a couple of random thoughts. First, I learned a long time ago to build to an industry standard size when ever possible. I have built three odd ball sized guitars and had to have custom cases made for them. Custom cases can be beautiful, expensive, and long delivery.

Second, you can tell a lot about how maple is going to look under finish by wiping it with naphtha. That will highlight the grain in about the same way as most finishes. Also, keep all of your cutoffs to experiment with stains and finishes as you approach that point in construction.

I totally get where you're coming from with the case thing. In doing some digging TKL makes a case (9121) that's designed for a Super 400 that will easily fit this beast. Easy plan right now is to use the TKL case and make spacers for it. I am fully prepared to get custom cases for these in the future. When I sell one in the future then a custom case will be included in the price.

That is a good tip about keeping the scraps for testing a finish on.

Dan,
Did you ever find a case for the Kay jumbo?

Nice! Kevin Kopp's Trail Boss might be of interest to you. To hear one in the hands of a master, check out some Darrell Scott videos.

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

Hey I totally forgot about that lol

Actually I had one of my regulars in the shop right after I finished it, he played it for about 5 minutes and then handed me cash for it. I'm happy though as the wife might've gotten a little annoyed with another guitar around the house.




I have seen those before. That's more of a 12 fret J200 which is cool.

Alright finally had some time to get a few more parts for this thing lined up. The kerfing I had considered purhasing pre made but I decided to just make it myself. Luckily I had these cherry strips leftover from a project maybe 5 years ago. I do not remember what the project was but this stuff should work if I'm careful. Can't exactly go out and just buy whatever I need right now with work at a standstill, got to make it work with what I have.

the cherry is pretty straight grained with a little figure. I'll just go for standard tall triangle shaped kerfing and not try to do anything too crazy.





Still haven't found time to really get some cutting done. Hopefully this weekend will provide that.

Update time!

Got some good cutting in today. It was a kerfing kind of day, so I made a simple gauge to mark the height I wanted and built a little jig to try to cut things somewhat consistently.

my "gauge"


The screw does a pretty good job and leaves an easily findable mark. Pretty cheap but hey, it works.


and the jig. Just a height guard so I don't slice through it with a piece of tape for the space marking.


I made a few mistakes when cutting and one of them was when I cut some of the spacing wider than the others. I was shooting for roughly 3-4mm spaced cuts and some of these are closer to 6mm apart. But it's not so ugly and it'll glue up just the same. I also made the mistake of not supporting the end portions of some of the 31" pieces and as a result I broke some parts off. Still going to use it though as it won't be immediately apparent when inside the guitar.









I just went with a simple triangle shape for them, nothing complicated. Does feel good to have this done though. Lots of saw cuts but it's worth it. More next time.

Small update, got the headstock overlay glued on, also got the fingerboard slotted. I'm saving my BRW for when I've actually got a few complete builds under my belt. I just used indian rosewood for the fingerboard and madagascar for the headstock overlay. I couldn't find a madi fingerboard but that would've been nice to match with the overlay and the bridge. Still alot to do

Well today is a great day. I ruined (cracked) both sides for this one while bending. Probably made several mistakes, you live and learn. Got some more maple coming to replace it but now I'm left with an orphan back that I'll have to find a use for later on.