Plenty of bear claw in that Sitka spruce top, not to mention lots of mellow bass and clear, ringing trebles.  A great piece of wood.

The top is Sitka spruce; the back is Bolivian rosewood; the ebony bridge and fingerboard are both bound with high-flame koa.  That’s koa on the headstock, too.

This two-piece rosewood back has a great bookmatch (a mirror image, straight down the centre). I love the look of sapwood.  That’s the live part of the tree – and in rosewoods it tends to have a lot of contrast with the heartwood.

The neck is a five-piece laminate construction: Honduran mahogany, purpleheart, sycamore, purpleheart and Honduran mahogany again.  Between the purpleheart and mahogany there is also a contrasting ash veneer.  Quite a complex thing to put together!  The heelcap is koa, with Grover machine heads installed.  I normally use Waverly machines, but this was a customer preference.

This is a very art deco guitar, and I wanted to reflect this with the bridge design.  It is bound with koa and inlaid with the crest of Essex, in mother-of-pearl.  Both myself and the customer hail from a fantastic part of Essex, so the inclusion of our native seaxes seemed fitting.

What do you think?