Nichols Old Wood Guitar-2014- Here is a little video of this guitar to better show how it looks and sounds.

I’ve built about 10 or 12 guitars and rebuilt a lot of them in the last 30 years or so. It seems I always end up with a closet full of guitars. I’ve sold a few but a lot of times I end up giving them away. I can’t afford to do that any longer. I had some pretty major surgery in February, 2014. In the recovery process, I needed something to do. I decided to make another guitar.

I had a piece of old spruce that I got from Bill Neat. He got it from an old man who said it was at least 90  or 100 years old. Bill gave it to me several years ago and I’d been wanting to use it in a guitar for a long time. I also had some Indian rosewood for the sides and back. I decided to proceed with this project. I had some old Martin tops laying around the shop and I decided to use this old top and use some old Martin braces. The top would be aged before I built it. I joined the two pieces of the top and thinned them down to approximately .105 inch. I used these old braces from some Martins. I have noticed through the years that old braces were a lot harder then the new spruce braces I put into guitars.

The old braces are hard to cut when you try to scallop them. These braces were scalloped a little because I’d used them to demonstrate to people what scalloping looked like. Anyway, these braces are all old wood. The bridge plate was some hard maple.

Here is what I wrote on the inside of this top.

Here is the outside of this top. I think I spent more time on the rosette than I did on the rest of the top.

I had some nice rosewood that I got several years ago from Allied Luthiery. I joined it and put the traditional D-28 Style center strip in it.

I also had some old Martin back braces and I used them.

I used some sides that I purchased from Larry Mathis several years ago. They were from the Martin Factory.

Here is the top being glued to the sides and back.

The body assembled and ready for the binding.

Ready for the binding.

I fabricated some binding from some curly maple. I like to use a thick binding because I round my binding over more then most builders.

The curl doesn’t show up very well in this picture, but it is there.

This top had a small knot in it, but I worked it out where it was under the pick guard.

 

Here is a shot of the insert in the rear of the body. It is birdseye maple.

Here is the body in the early stages of finishing. That rosewood required a lot of filling and sanding to get those grain pores smooth.

That’s more like it. I finished the body and the neck separately. I bolted this neck on the body.

After the buffing process.

I ordered a mahogany neck blank from Allied Luthiery. It was an excellent billet that was large enough to make two necks.

After shaping the side profile of the neck I attached the peghead overlay and fingerboard. I had a fingerboard that came from Martin, obviously from a D-35. I got a bunch of fingerboards from Larry Mathis. They were some that Martin had removed in the warranty repair process years ago.

Here is the neck almost shaped.

I like the old Gibson style truss rod. This makes it necessary to leave a little more wood in the volute area.

Neck and fingerboard.

Neck

Finished neck without hardware.

Body

Binding

Peghead

The finished product.

The old wood really made a difference. This made a really good sounding box. Update: This guitar now belongs to Richard Montgomery of Cedar Bluff, AL. He is a really good friend and an excellent singer and musician. I hope it gives him years of enjoyment!!