Hello friends,

I thought I'd post a few photos of the latest blanca. A few non-standard or new things:

Neck has a center strip of flamed maple, and cocobolo/ebony veneers.
I tried mastic technique in the rosette. The center motif of boxwood and green veneer strips is encrusted in the field of mastic. I made the mastic by mixing burnt umber pigment and hot hide glue and filling the voids with it. My first attempt failed, when I tried epoxy instead of hide glue. For some reason the epoxy never hardened, and I ended-up with this horrible, gooey mess which I couldn't clean out, so I ended-up burning the top in the woodstove. Second attempt was success!

7th fret marker is a natural knot shadow in the cocobolo rosewood. The customer personally picked-out the fingerboard and top wood (some bear claw, although hard to see in the photo) at my shop. I didn't get a chance to record the instrument, but it was one of my top best gutiars yet. Fortunately for me, the guitar will live here in Portland, Oregon. I will try to "invite" the guitar back in the shop for a recording session.

Thanks, and enjoy!

Another beauty! Interested to hear a sound clip of it. Are the B & S cypress? How does the cocobolo rosewood fingerboards wear compared to ebony? When you say it is your best yet, do you mean in looks or tone or both?

The cocobolo reminds me of Oregon Mountain mahogany. Back in the late 70's I found a huge old dead tree that I cut up into pieces I was going to use for fingerboards. Only one piece out of 10 didn't develop bad cracks after 10 years storage. I never used it for anything and finally gave it to a mandolin maker that used some of it. It is so hard that it is almost impossible to saw for frets. My theory was it would make a finger board that would never wear. Would also make good pegs if one had the patience. It has always been a dream of mine to make or now have made a flamenco guitar totally from Oregon woods. Juniper back and sides, spruce top, neck from Port Orford cedar with maple inlay, fingerboard, bridge, pegs from Mountain Mahogany, bindings, head veneer from black walnut, and rosette a mix of Oregon woods all natural color. The problem is finding juniper and mountain mahogany suitable for use.

http://oregonstate.edu/trees/broadleaf_ ... ogany.html