Hey all  (or GGGG, whichever fits)

I just finished my next guitar.  I tried something new and made the entire body
and neck out of Alaskan Yellow Cedar (a cypress), a lightweight conifer.
Normally, steel string guitars (as opposed to classical guitars which have used
gut, now nylon strings) have always been made with hardwoods, with some of the
favorites having higher density and harder surfaces, woods like rosewood, oak,
hard maple. I have seen a couple of Flamenco guitars that were made of this
wood.   So I was expecting this instrument to be more quiet and refined than
voluminous and brash.

The bracing inside under the top is a very important part of the sound.  The
Larson Brothers built guitars in the first few decades of the 20th c, and they
used laminated braces - 3 layers, spruce on the outside and rosewood on the
inside. They were thin, but strong, so they did not cover as much surface area
but still had desirable combinations of rigidity and flex.  I did this, but used
Osage Orange in the middle with Alaskan Yellow Cedar on the outside.  And since
I was using a longer scale (string length) I had to re-engineer the location of
the bracing because the bridge (big block with little round pins) had to move a
little on the top.  There is no real formula for this, just rule of thumb, so I
made my best guess and moved along.

It turned out very cool indeed.  The first day I put the strings on it was quiet
for the three bass strings, put loud and clear for the three higher strings.
This is called “balance” and my guitar was not balanced.  You should be able to
play on various strings without a listener being able to tell which string you
are on, and this did not have any of that.

By day 5, it had evened out considerably, the tone was very bright and clear,
and the volume was WAY more than I was anticipating.  The balance was much
improved, and it had developed a crispness that seems almost jangly.  My
fantastic guitarist daughter was here from day 2 to day 5, and as she played it
each day I could here a difference.  It is common knowledge that instruments
have a break-in period where something happens and their tone changes.  Some say
that with age, resins in the wood crystallize (whatever that means), some say
that the stresses from the strings trying to fold the instrument in half change
the internal structure of the fibers a bit.  People put a large speaker on the
top and play loud music to get the wood to vibrate, and they even make machines
that does this specifically.  But it usually takes a long time, like months or
years.  All I know is that over 5 days, this thing matured amazingly.  Here are
2 short iPhone (sorry) videos of my daughter playing it on day 5.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCEMYpr8Vpc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NUD-bdNR0g

Here are some pictures of it.  Click left and right, text below:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/30816154577/in/album-72157688488198220/

And I took some pictures (over 200 of them - Holy Crap) of the construction, so
If you have half a mind, as I am sure that most of you do, take a look here. In
the upper left you can click “back to album” to get a thumbnail version, then
click on anything you find interesting:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/26765749748/in/album-72157688488198220/

The playability of this one is great - it is supposed to be easy to play, but
they don’t always come out that way.  Today is day 8 and the tone continues to
change a little, the balance is very good, and it about the loudest guitar I
have.  The tone is remarkable to my aging ears and I love it - very crisp and
clear.  It will be interesting to hear what happens over the next year or so.

thanks for looking

Ed Minch
The back yard is full of goldfinches - 20 of them