NGD - custom Avalon Ard Rí LK-370FC - All Koa Jumbo, 12 fret, Florentine

artiebear

wow, that is lovely Koa. So much of it these days is much less impressive than the wonderful boards you have for your guitar.

CountryDave

Gorgeous. Have asked if you can have the sound hole cutout to use as a coaster? That’s way too nice to throw away.

ToneControl

CountryDave said:

Gorgeous. Have asked if you can have the sound hole cutout to use as a coaster? That’s way too nice to throw away.

they always send that with a custom guitar

ToneControl

danishbacon

This is exciting

richman6100

Looks beautiful already.

Chris_J

I bet you can't wait!

I'm excited for you!

Looks stunning and it's fantastic to see the process.

danishbacon

ToneControl said:

No pre shaped bits except for where the braces meet other braces perpendicularly. I imagine that’s to reduce risk of damaging the neighbouring truss with a chisel. 

ToneControl

Chris_J said:

I bet you can't wait!

I'm excited for you!

Looks stunning and it's fantastic to see the process.

yes, trouble is with this you pull the trigger then wait for 2-3 months! It's hard to be patient

ToneControl

danishbacon said:

ToneControl said:

No pre shaped bits except for where the braces meet other braces perpendicularly. I imagine that’s to reduce risk of damaging the neighbouring truss with a chisel. 

I've asked for this one to be voiced for fingerstyle playing, not sure what tweaks will be made to accomplish that

ToneControl

ToneControl

danishbacon

I can't recall where I read/heard, but I think it was a video of Steve explaining bracing perhaps, or maybe it was Lowden. Oh well. The point being, they sand everything down under the top, rounding off hard edges and removing any rough bits after the chisel so that sound waves reflect better off surfaces, whereas a rough surface will absorb the sound.

ToneControl

danishbacon said:

I can't recall where I read/heard, but I think it was a video of Steve explaining bracing perhaps, or maybe it was Lowden. Oh well. The point being, they sand everything down under the top, rounding off hard edges and removing any rough bits after the chisel so that sound waves reflect better off surfaces, whereas a rough surface will absorb the sound.

yes, Steve told me about that
Some other Luthiers do that too

artiebear

ToneControl said:

danishbacon said:

I can't recall where I read/heard, but I think it was a video of Steve explaining bracing perhaps, or maybe it was Lowden. Oh well. The point being, they sand everything down under the top, rounding off hard edges and removing any rough bits after the chisel so that sound waves reflect better off surfaces, whereas a rough surface will absorb the sound.

yes, Steve told me about that
Some other Luthiers do that too

Stefan Sobell buys into that to the extent that the interior of his guitars have a very thin varnish coating as well as ridiculously assiduous attention to smoothing of every surface. 

BTW having these pics of the build is brilliant.

ToneControl

I didn't mention before, but I had to choose the headstock facing
In the end I chose to use the Koa offcuts from my guitar

ToneControl

But some of the other options were very intriguing

ToneControl

Also:

ToneControl

danishbacon

Don’t envy having to chose!