Yesterday I closed the boxes on a new pair of guitars, both in sugar maple. Sugar maple is a dream to work with and handsome to boot.

These sets show incredible figure now and will be eye-popping under shellac. I’m setting this tenor up to be tuned slightly lower, like an octave mandolin (G-D-A-E), rather than the more common C-G-D-A tenor tuning. Its big sister will be a grand concert size six-string, and this batch of sugar maple so far sounds like the best cherry, with a nice pinging tap tone.