Ok, the two guitars are coming along together, the bodies are all but done and the binding is coming along on the cilgerran.


Binding on the Oxwich is figured maple with purfling around the edges and soundboard

The binding on the Cilgerran is Boxwood with purfling between it and the abalone and the abalone and the back, sides or soundboard... the mitre joints, oh the mitre joints!! Hundreds of them, all hand cut at different and varying angles, I'm starting to see double.

Necks next, as well as a couple of full body shots

Lovely pair...

I've decided to build my next two guitars in tandem. Different body shapes, so each can spend time in its own mould but it'll be easier to make a batch of braces, do a lot of thicknessing etc, not to mention having less dust over a long period to clean up. That's the idea anyway.

 The first is a Cilgerran 12 fret. The soundboard is Carpathian spruce with back and sides of Cocobolo. For those of you who are interested, Carpathian spruce Picea Abies is the same as German, Italian, Swiss.... any European Spruce but it grows in the Carpathian mountains in Eastern Europe. It is typically quite slow growing, showing tight grain lines that we like although heavy logging by the Soviets means that often the rings are rather wide at the edges of the board. Not so with this piece, very nice grain with little runout, lots of cross silking and a lovely tap tone already. Not content with beautiful tonewoods, the future owner of this guitar has specified abalone trim galore; around the soundhole, around the edge of the soundboard, around the back, along the binding on the sides (top and bottom), around the heel of the guitar, around the end fillet and around the fingerboard extension over the soundboard, not to mention an ornate inlay on the headstock and fingerboard markers... I think that's everything. The end result will be my take on Martin's 45 range of guitars. It'll be a thing of beauty when finished!

Scraping down the marquetry backstrip

The first bit of pearl on the guitar

Braces all glued on, ready for voicing

 Next up is an Oxwich parlour in Walnut, I love the size and sound of parlour guitars and Walnut, particularly Claro Walnut is my favourite wood for back and sides, if nothing else, then for the lovely woody smell. The wood has a great tone as an added bonus, plus it looks great!

The soundboard is a really nice piece of Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata for those into their Romans) that I have had in stock for a little while waiting for the right opportunity

This month I was also fortunate enough to be a finalist in two categories in the Monmouthshire business awards in the young entrepreneur and best rural enterprise categories. Although I didn't win, Sammie and I had a very nice evening eating delicious food at the glitzy awards ceremony and dinner at the Angel hotel in Abergavenny. Its great to see so many businesses doing well in our (well, my) neck of the woods.

In between working on the terz and other guitars I've managed to find the time to finish a guitar I started late in 2010! I was building it to demonstrate methods and techniqes alongside Richard who was building his own. He finished his in 2011 (see a few blogs down) and I... didn't. The Rhossili got left behind whilst I worked on commissions and repairs but its all finished and sounds and plays lovely.

The soundboard is Sitka spruce,
Back and sides are Claro Walnut
Neck is Sapele
Fingerboard, bridge pins and headstock veneer are ebony
Bridge is Indian Rosewood
Binding is figured maple
Tuners are Grover sta tites

This Rhossili brings my total number of stock guitars to two and is also for sale at £1300. If you would like to come and give it and its stablemate (well, cupboardmate) a european spruce and mahogany Cilgerran a play you are most welcome.

The Terz is nearly done, body and neck are finished and buffed ready for assembly, bridge and setup

That's all for now, I'll post up some nice pictures of the lovely little Terz when its finished, and when I have decided on a fitting name for it! Also a little taster of a guitar I've been working on over the last few months, should be finished by then.

Richie

Last week was very much 'new guitar week' both for me and for my first 'student' Richard who has been coming to my workshop a couple of times a week since the autumn to build himself a guitar. Whilst his aim at the beginning was to build himself a guitar which first and foremost had good tone with looks coming a distant second, he pretty quickly succumbed to pretty woods and shiny bits of shell. He's ended up with a guitar that looks great and sounds great too, the sound will continue to improve over the coming days, weeks and months as the wood loosens up and things settle down. The soundboard is European spruce. Back sides and neck are Claro Walnut. Binding and end fillet are Very figured Koa, fingerboard and front headstock veneer are ebony while the back veneer and bridge are burr oak and Indian Rosewood respectively. Rosette is abalone, the finish is Nitro cellulose over french polish.

Well done Richard and thanks for the canoe!





My new guitar is the first of a new body shape for me, my usual long scale length and a neck that joins the body at the 14th fret. Continuing the theme of naming my guitars after places I have fond memories of from summer holidays camping in West Wales this is the Rhossili model and will be on my website just as soon as I take some flashy photos of it. This particular guitar has a sitka spruce top, Indian rosewood back and sides, Koa binding ( that I managed to use before Richard nabbed the rest of it) reclaimed Mahogany neck Rosewood bridge and ebony fingerboard and headstock veneer. Its a bit of a departure for me as I usually build guitars suited for fingerpicking and this is a bit more of an all rounder, the harder sitka spruce usually favours plectrum playing but we'll see as the sound opens up.

http://www.richardmeyrickguitars.co.uk/rhossili.html

The last week or so has been relativley light on repairs coming in so I've had a chance to catch up on some guitar building which has had to take a bit of a back seat recently. You can see the body ready to go and the neck being aligned before gluing on the fingerboard. Visible is the mortise and tenon I use to attach the neck. Not visible are the bolts that locate through the soundhole to secure the neck in place. Sometimes a neck will need a little adjustment left or right to ensure proper alignment, I do this by shaving slivers off the cheeks of the neck but this one was pretty good already. You can also see my new Gizmo for checking the alignment of the neck and body, it centers itself on the neck shaft and projects the centreline down onto the body. This isn't any more accurate than the method I previously used but it does save a lot of fiddling about with rulers and straight edges! I've been building this guitar alongside Richard, my 'student' who is learning to build his own guitar, his is getting very near to finishing so I'll post a couple of pics of his finished instrument when it's done, It's a figured Walnut and Euorpean spruce OM sized beaut!

This week I've had a workshop full of repairs in, finish repairs, bridge reglues, refrets setups so I'll be kept busy for the next week. Pics to follow.

Also I couldn't resist showing off a few pictures of my honeybees, the colony is very big and gathering lots of honey, I have 2 supers (boxes full of honey) on and touch wood will have a good crop of honey this year.

http://www.richardmeyrickguitars.co.uk/rhossili.html