The new owner of this guitar fell in love with someone else’s classic J-45 and loved the enveloping bass tones and the dry midrange that this style of guitar can do so well. Since it’s wrong to covet guitars belonging to touring musicians, we decided to build him his very own classic slope-shouldered dread to get the sound, look and feel he was dreaming of. We went pretty traditional, using a Honduran mahogany set (from Hibdon Hardwood in St Louis) with rosewood accents. We supercharged the guitar by building around a red spruce–often called Adirondack spruce–top from Old Standard Wood that is perfectly quartered with minimal runout and provides kilowatts of acoustic power to spare.
Yep, I dropped this one in the shop after applying the last coat of finish (the first time around), so got to take another run at the body finish, and practice made perfect. It seems I’ve been only building sunbursted/toned guitars lately, but I enjoy the process of transparently coloring a guitar to bring out everything the wood has to offer. Most of the color is applied using waterbased dyes and rags, to recreate the looks of the best toned instruments I’ve seen. The finish is waterborne lacquer. All of the purflings, bindings and rosette are crafted from real wood, and Taylor Mullins (Holter Pickguards) made a custom celluloid pickguard that looks perfect. This guitar is amplified via a K&K Pure Mini.
It sounds great! It has the big, confident bass we aimed for, the quick decay we wanted, and the mids and high notes travel with more conviction than most guitars this size (that’s the red spruce top kicking in). It strums like a beast with great percussion and tone, can boom-chuck with the best guitars, and is quite nice for fingerstyle. Maybe the best guitars are dropped on their heads during the building process. 😉
Specifications | |
---|---|
Serial Number | 30 |
Completed | June 2024 |
Size | Slope-shouldered Dreadnought |
Top | Adirondack Spruce |
Sides & Back | Honduran Mahogany |
Binding & Accent Wood | Curly Maple |
Fretboard | Rosewood |
Bridge | Rosewood |
Scale Length | 24.9″ |
Nut Width | 1.75″ |