Matthew Mustapick Guitars beauty    purpose    character 2714 Lafayette Street Soquel, CA 95073 (831) 465-6803 matt@mustapickguitars.com

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Tim's Baritone Soundbox is Complete

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 Over the last few days I've completed construction of the soundbox of Tim's German Spruce and Ziricote Baritone. Dramatically figured ziricote like this is just so beautiful! It's especially fun to look at when you get a set that bookmatches very symmetrically like this. Tonally it's fantastic as well. Something about it reminds me a little bit of walnut. Of course it's harder and denser, but it has a similar courseness to the grain structure. As you can see I've routed the channels for the bloodwood binding and glued that in. I've also compeleted a first round of finish-sanding on the body. At this point I'm leaving the top a little thicker than it will finally be. The last thing I do when I'm preparing an instrument for finish is to very carefully thin the top, especially around the perimeter of the lower bout, until I really like what I'm hearing when I tap on the box. So that's a ways off, but essentially construction of the soundbox is complete now, and I'll be moving on to the neck next. More soon! :)