I haven't posted pictures of the finished steel string guitar. I had posted some pictures a while back during its construction. Unfortunately the overall picture seems to be too big a file to upload. I'll have to work on it.
The guitar is made of Brazilian rosewood cut in 1960. The top is German spruce,which was stamped 1968 on the blank top pieces. The peg head overlay is one I have used on the last several guitars. Bindings are curly maple. The fingerboard is Gaboon ebony,with diamond shaped and round abalone markers. The neck is good hard Honduras mahogany about 75 years old,when you could get the good stuff,exactly flat cut to resist the neck bending best,though the drill rod truss rod would handle that in any case. I did not make the truss rod cover.
The tuning pegs are NOS 1960's "butter bean" style tuners. Gretsch used them on the Country Gentleman guitars back then. They are hard to find these days. Very comfortable to use. I have 1 other set. The customer wanted them.
The picture was taken before I had glued in my label.
The bridge is the old pyramid style. That is,the wings have pyramids sculpted on them. You can see them in the picture of the top.A style used many years ago. I like small bridges as weight is the enemy of tone in bridges.
The customer wanted mother of pearl around the sound hole,and my little pearl inlay at the bottom of the body. The fingerboard is bound in celluloid,with a heart shaped end that overhangs the sound hole.
I like to make steel string guitars evocative of the 30's or 40's. The shape of the peg head is from this era. It also is bound in celluloid in a miniature version of the fingerboard bindings. Celluloid was used on the fingerboard since it is handled there. Lacquered curly maple would soon get worn through the finish and start looking gray and dirty along the top edge.
The frets go over the bindings,clear to the edge of the fingerboard. I can't play guitars whose frets stop inside the bindings,without the first string slipping past the edge of the fret. Les Paul made Gibson make his fingerboards this way,too. I have a beautiful Black Beauty Les Paul 1954 Historic Reissue that I can't play unless I remove the frets and make them go clear to the edge of the fingerboard. I don't see why Gibson makes them that way.
The finish is as thin as possible,sprayed over a well sanded layer of thinned out epoxy thinner.
The sound of this guitar is very powerful,with booming bass and sparkling trebles that ring harmonics from other strings. Very live sounding as if in a large auditorium with those ringing harmonics.