Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Hi all, Another Om finished, This is Blackheart Sassafras back and sides, Bunya Top, Australian Red Cedar neck, bindings are Australian Blackwood.
I made this one for a friend to gain a little experience, he paid for all timbers and I got the experience.I think I got the rough deal
Next is already on the drawing board.

I Forgot to mention that the finish is my first french polish job ,and Happy with the result

Plays very well,a very loud instrument for a standard X brace OM

Well done Tod...it was no time ago when you brought it along as just a rimset with the back attached....you need a speeding ticket!

John

Very nice job Tod. How did you do the rosette?
I've just finished a love job Uke for my brother, so having someone at least buying the timber, especially some really nice sassafras like that, sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Thanks John and Matt sorry about the poor quality photo's, Doesnt do it justice, I will have to get myself a better camera.

John,
trust me, I never went over 150Klm/hr, being on 4 weeks leave from work and working on this every day helped get it finished a bit quicker.

Matt,
The rosette was a new technique for me that took 4 weeks to produce..................... after clicking on buy it now and doing the paypal thing so I can't take credit for that,and I don't think I would put in so much work when they can be bought from china for $15 well maybe I would

Congrats Tod, that's a very nice one!

Is it just me who thinks that the rosette design echoes that beautiful sassafras back? It doesn't matter to me if you paid 15$ or made it yourself "for free" ...

Great work Tod, well made great choice of woods, bet it sounds great too
you do do need to slow down on production though !!!you are making us look positively lazy!!!

Cheers,
Christian.

Thanks christian and Markus, the next won't be happening very quickly, with 3 made I now have no excuses Time to get really serious, take my time and get everything perfect , I hope.

Way to go Tod! Love that Blackheart Sassafrass - really nice looking material

Dennis

Tod, that's a beautiful instrument. Looks to be very high quality workmanship.. My hat, sir, is off to you....

Nice work Tod....now slow down a bit!

Thankyou for the kind words,

Martin, Brakes are on

Nice work Tod. She looks damn good!

How did you find the sound of the Bunya top?

I built a Parlour acoustic with a Bunya top and liked the tone very much!

I've also used Sassafras in a weissenborn build and the guitar has a big, warm tone. Nice to bend too!

Thanks for sharing mate.

Cheers

Alan

Thanks Alan, this was my second OM with a bunya top, the first one had a top that was a lot stiffer than this, the properties of Bunya vary a great deal, Trevor Gore tells us that it can vary as much as 30%,and I found that I had to thin the first top a bit more, it was a bit of guess, but luckily they both ended up with a great tone, but as I said Luck came into play, I am now useing Trevors Tap testing to determine Plate thickness and this should take the guess work out of it and give me more consistency. I think that I will find that the bunya would need to be thinner than say a Spruce top.