I just got home from playing a gig with my good friend Michael at the Tipping Point and thought I might write a bit.  By the way Michael and I are playing tomorrow night, the 29th at City lights Cafe, with Maggie Tobias.  She is a great singer.  You may know her name as a writer for the Sylva Herald.  I'm sorry for all the links, but some of you might like the info.

        So, I got the wood back from the cabinet shop and had some tweaking to do, but finished that and got to work.  This is what you start with (top picture).  This is the back.  It is maple and it's very hard.  The top is spruce and much softer.  I spent quite a bit of time making the joint to connect the two pieces together.  As I said before, you hold them up to the light and if you can see any light through the joint, you're not finished yet.  It is interesting that you don't want to see light through the joint, but later the guitar its' self will be so thin I will be able to see, not only light through it, but the shadow of my hand.  When I get to that point I'll take a picture to demonstrate.  It makes me think of the importance of light in art.  We see it in visuals, like photography and painting, but don't think of it much in sound, but I think it plays a big part.  It gives us a reference point and helps us create.  When I'm carving I'll turn the lights off and shine a clamp light across the piece I'm working on and the imperfections become obvious.  My life is much the same way.
          Anyway, the bottom picture is of the top of the guitar and the neck with the truss rod groove cut.  Seems to be coming along nicely.  I'll leave you with a quote from Madeleine L'engle, "There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation."  If I can ever afford a real website I'd love to put that quote on the home page.  It is the only reason for building anything.

The Neck

     So, I tried to get the wood for the plates planed, but my friend at the cabinet shop was gone.  I went today and dropped it off, so it will be available sometime this week.  Rather than wait, I decided to work on the neck.  It is a three piece laminated neck like the last guitar I made.  A laminated neck is supposed to be stronger and less likely to warp.  I used bloodwood laminate between the maple.  Bloodwood is the closest to red you can find without dyeing.  I watched a documentary about Andy Goldsworthy called Rivers and Tides.  He is an amazing artist who creates his work outside in the place he finds himself in, using no tools and only the materials that are found in nature.  He works with leaves, vines, wood, snow, sand.  Pretty much anything available.  Anyway, he was talking about the mysterious power of red and how it is so primal to us that we have this attraction that we can't explain.  My idea is to use bloodwood for most of the accent, although I have heard it is very hard to bend.  If it is hard as ebony, I'm not sure I'll have the skill to achieve this, but I'll try and you'll hear about it.  Just the name "bloodwood" congers up such a mystical picture in my mind of wine and oil paint, of Christ and salvation, of death and life, of earth and working with my hands.
     As a sideline,  I wrote this musical composition after watching his documentary.  His way of using nature is what intrigued me.  I came home the other day and my wife, Donna, was listening to this most amazing sound.  I immediately thought it would make a great idea for a song.  It turns out the sound was a wood thrush, but it was slowed way down so that you could hear the individual notes.  I have been listening to Jason Moran quite a bit, and he uses different things for a muse to write and also to improvise along with.  If this makes no since to you listen to ringing my phone.  First I learned the melody of the birdsong and then what key it was in and what key changes took place, then I wrote a very sparse arrangement with a limited amount of bass notes so that the tonal center could be minor, or major according to the improviser's interpretation.  Then I used my metronome to find the tempo that the birdsong had been slowed down to.   I then recorded the song structure and the melody on my loop pedal and finally added the wood thrush to see what it sounded like.  Very cool.  When I can make a decent recording of it I'll add it so you can hear.
       So, the neck is glued together (top picture) and will have to sit over night.  The picture on the bottom is the bloodwood sitting on top of some Indian rosewood, which I used on the last guitar.      

        Tomorrow I'll take the clamps off and go from there.

The beginning

My idea for this blog site was to write about building my third guitar as I work on it.  My ideas about God and music will also be included, because the three things are meshed together in my mind.  Working on the guitar becomes a prayer sometimes, as does listening and playing music.  God seems to speak clearer when I'm doing these things.
    For those who are interested, I've posted pictures of the first two guitars I built in various stages of completion.  The pictures that look professional were taken by my son Jesse Savage, who is getting his website up and running, but you can click on the link to see some of his work.  The blonde is my first, which I built as a student of Brad Nickerson, an amazing luthier in Asheville NC.  The second is the sunburst, which I sold last month.  The third I will start tomorrow by taking three sets of tops, and backs and sides to a cabinet shop to have them trued up on a planer.  Then I will begin the tedious task of hand planing the pieces to make the plates.  I am building another archtop, so it will take awhile to get the joint just right.  The two pieces for the top are 1 to 11/2 inches thick and are bookend matches of each other, as are the pieces for the back.  You have to plane them perfectly, so that when you hold them up to the light (this is referred to as candling) you see no light through the joint.  The last time I did this I had 8hrs in one set and 4 in the other.  I hope to be a little speedier this time, but I'll let you know.
     My goal as a luthier is simple.  I am 51.  I built my first when I was 50.  I intend to get good enough, so that by the time I am 65, I won't be handing out carts at Walmart, or mixing paint at Lowes.  I figure if I can sell two a year by then, I'll be doing ok.  We live simple and don't need a lot to enjoy life.
     The best days of building are when you start, when you close up the body, when you put the strings on and it doesn't sound like a banjo, and when you polish the finish and put it in the case.  Tomorrow I start one of those days.  The adventure begins.