1934 OM to be

We were able to schedule holiday on the left coast and started in Santa Cruz, Will was great with helping setup some time with Richard.

I hadn’t expected whether work on my guitar would have started and so I was super excited to find that the body has been assembled, as has the neck – which is awaiting a fretboard the labrys inlay is done Beautiful to me, I hope others like it as well (or even half as well :-)).

I was more than a little excited to learn what I could about how SCGC voices their instruments and Richard afforded me a pretty deep dive, as well as plenty of discussion of where the art and science are headed. His/their work toward quantifying what goes into tuning the pieces to come together into a whole is so ground-breaking. I’ll flatter myself that I did an OK job describing my own work, not more or less complex, just different areas of science and art.

Their process is more steps than I’d realized, also more components have been thought-through for their contribution to tone — we know about RH’s tuning of the neck to the rest of the guitar (and here also, I learned there’s more than one way to do it, depending on the objective). Additionally, Richard introduced me to how they use kerfing and binding to transfer energy into the guitar sides .. amazing.

I’ve decided since our conversation that I’ll build a practice guitar .. maybe oak body and either pine or cedar soundboard .. woods I can probably obtain as scrap .. build the best guitar I can from those applying what I learned from Richard .. then do the keeper guitar, probably bearclaw spruce > maple B&S, however I’m also continuing to explore mahogany, we also talked about that, and I don’t see my love affair with rosewood & maple ending. Later that day I was able to play a mahogany SCGC at Sylvan **excellent instrument**, and for now, I’m still a rosewood girl. I need to try on some older mahogany body guitars too.

Anyway, enough words, here are the expected pictures of my OM in progress 🙂 First the stellar back.

Here’s the labrys inlay

And the core of the guitar, the soundboard. I can’t believe the tight grain on this – I think that’s not much correlated with an instrument’s sound, nonetheless it’s shockingly beautiful 🙂

So, I’ll be patiently awaiting the word from Will when she’s done, meantime we’re enjoying San Francisco, about to make up breakfast and then it’s across the bridge to take in some beaches and more forest (We drove up here via CA 9 through the SC mountains, and the day before, went down to Big Sur. Also, I’ve had my obligatory dip in the Pacific, this time was playing in heavier surf than I’d try to get serious in.

Thanks again to everyone at SCGC who make this work happen and thanks for everyone’s time.

Got word from TME, she’s arrived!

I won’t be able to get over there until Monday, possibly Sunday. So no photos ’til next week. I’m super excited to play this instrument :-).

I took photos today, she sounds spectacular – such clear note definition, really a great instrument for fingerstyle. The bass response is a bit closed down, not a surprise in a new Adi top, I’m sure it will blossom with a couple of years of playing.

I’m over the moon – the tone of this guitar is everything I’d heard in other SCGC instruments that lead me to decide on this one. I can’t imagine being happier.

Here are some snaps of the guitar:

The custom inlay is everything I’d hoped for, just gorgeous

Amazing tight growth rings in this top:

I love this back, the image is punched up a bit, so it’s visible, she’s darker than this under normal lighting

Detail:

The shop surely found some beautifully figured walnut for the binding and tail wedge, and the sides of this guitar are just as beautiful as the back .. just OMG.

@tadol, @haasome, thanks! I fully expect many years of enjoying this guitar.

Some details of the construction have just impressed me – things I wouldn’t take the time to pore over / ogle while sitting in the LGS. The top finish is SO much better than my Martin. on the OM-28 I can feel most of the seams – backstrip, tail wedge, the rings of the rosette are all easy to feel in relief to the tonewoods. This guitar has none of that. Also, there’s a LOT less hump behind the bridge of the ’34 than I remember on the Martin when it was new.

It’s not that I care much about these things, they’re good to feel and experience, I’d not have liked the guitar less without them, however I also hadn’t really considered that fit and finish could be improved that much over what Martin delivers.

Anyway, all that sits distantly behind the tone of this guitar. I wrote to the Adam at TME, about the experience of doing a much longer A/B of this alongside my OM-28 “It’s like I’ve been shooting with Ektachrome all my life, and then shooting a roll of Kodachrome (more accurately like when I got my hands on Kodak’s Technical Pan negative film).

Remarkable

Thanks for the + comments :-).

Two months of LOTS of playing, the guitar has opened up amazingly – where new, the #6 string was originally feeling short of harmonic response, it’s now bright, and much richer.

And not a huge surprise, but definitely pleasing, the strings have only just begun to dull.