So I promised pictures and here they are. The wood of the fretboard is African Blackwood. This particular very cool piece is a combination on heartwood[black] and the sapwood[white]. African Blackwood is also one of the worlds best tonewoods. The rest of the guitar, the body, is all fashioned from Port Orford Cedar. This is a wood usually used in Flamenco guitars. It is also a very cool wood for a steel string guitar, and its sounds resonate pretty much forever which is a good thing for a guitar to do. Port Orford Cedar, or POC is not a cedar at all, but is from the cypress family. So why is it called Cedar? Why indeed.

So the new guitar is still being finished, however IT SOUNDS GREAT!!! It will be finished by Sunday. Only a few things left to do. The very cool piece of wood which is the truss rod cover needs to be fit and screwed in place. This access lets one adjust the up and down plan of the fretboard. The two strap buttons need to be installed. Different strings need to be put on and played for a while to determine which strings sound the best for this particular guitar. Strings pretty much look the same, but are built differently which changes the sound they produce A LOT. Strings also go dead in a very short time frame. 8-10 hours of playing usually is enough to kill the strings. Anyhow, a small and very beautiful guitar is almost complete. Pictures next time of that like totally, like finished, like guitar.

Lets review class. Once the bridge is on, and the neck is on, all thats left to do is put on the strings. RIGHT? Yes, except for leveling, shaping, and polishing the frets. And sanding and polishing the fretboard. And the final polishing of the whole guitar on the buffing wheel. And the careful tapering of the bridge pin holes. And installing the tuning machines. And fitting the bone nut. And slotting the bone nut. And fitting the bone saddle. And shaping the saddle for proper intonation. And least we forget to make and sign and install the label. And clean the inside of the guitar. And install the end peg for the strap and of course the neck peg too. So yes all one must do after the neck is on and the bridge is on is to put on strings.

Why yes indeed, the neck of the next guitar is glued on. But so is the well crafted and handsome bridge. So what to do. Finish one and hear it sing, or create yet another well crafted totally cool and uniquely different bridge for the other. So many choices, so little time.

Well no, the other neck for the other guitar is not glued on yet. Today for sure... However, from what appears to be a piece of crap piece of wood comes out a beautiful, well crafted, properly constructed bridge. So life is still good in the medium-slow lane which is guitar building.

Another neck being glued on the body. This very simple, small, and very light guitar is yet another experiment of tone and playability. I'm really all a twitter [twitter?] waiting to hear this one. A few days more. Meanwhile, yet another neck on yet another guitar shall be glued up probably today. It too is hard to wait for as it is an unusual combination of woods and bracing. We shall soon see and hear. Edwin

What does breaking concrete have to do with making guitars? Not a damn thing. Except taking time. Time spent making a guitar is the most valuable, the most necessary part part of making a decent instrument. Time spent on design is probably the most important of all, cause if you start with a bad design, no matter how much time spent on building is will still be a bad guitar. Factories simply can not spend the time to create as can custom builders. Custom builders make guitars for a purpose other than making a lot of money. All of which has lead us to yet another day on chipping away concrete, not guitar building. This too shall pass.

The time spent in the finishing process, which is mostly waiting for stuff to dry or cure, would be mostly boring if it weren't for the start of the next guitar. I'm always very curious how the last guitar will sound, and play and feel, but by now I have a fairly good idea how it will look. But we will just have to wait. However, its always exciting to start a new guitar. It will be different from anything I've done.{they all are different}. It will be visually stimulating. It will sound different from the rest because of many many things done or not done during construction. The best guitars, for whatever reason, get picked up and played more than the lesser guitars. Whether the tone is inspirational, or the silky feel makes one grab it for a while, the best guitars are picked up and played. As always, that is my hope for every one of my guitars, that they are picked up and played...often.

So, you wonder, what does sailing and visiting the tropics have to do with building guitars? Everywhere we went on our boat "Just Imagine" we found people making musical instruments . In any small, perhaps backward town, one can find people playing music. Where music is played, the are people making the instruments. Be seeing how guitar making is done elsewhere in the world, and how the results sound, and feel and play, we can better flavor our own guitars. Seeing how guitars are made all over the world also has influenced our visual perceptions of how a guitar should look. For me every guitar should look different than the last on. Factories all over the world produce the same thing over and over and over. BORING!!! Every guitar we make, or will ever make will be unique, will have superior sound and feel, and will be very cool.

Last night the came down so hard that I was reminded of sailing and living in the tropics. Living in Western Oregon gives a person the impression that we know what hard rain is. That, however, is a misconception. A place called Portobelo Panama, is the rainiest spot in North America. It is warm and sunny all day long. Every day. Every day until 3 PM that is. Then, the clouds gather and the rain falls in torrents. It rains so hard that one can not see 10 feet distant. It rains so hard that a 5 gal. bucket is filled in about 30 seconds.. The weather carries on this way for an hour or so then the clouds go away, the sun comes back out, and things are warm and sunny once again. Until the next day. Remembering this weather in Panama makes me realize that a vacation remembered is almost as good, and in some cases better, as the original vacation. And in todays economy a lot cheaper.