This is actually a really old Post. Somehow it was never posted, but this dates back to around 2013
Mike and Rick are two cool old dudes. I played in various kirtan groups with both of them throughout the years. Both are very good musicians whether it be guitar, bass, harmonium or singing; these guys have a deep catalog of musical explorations.
It had been a few years after attending Roberto-Venn since I had built an acoustic guitar. My shop was slowly growing both in size and in tooling. The time had come to start building acoustics again! But alas, I need money to buy the wood and the tuners and the lacquer and the everything I need to build one. What else to do other than ask a couple of old dudes that have money to let you build them a couple of guitars and all they have to pay for is the materials. It totally works. So yeah, I’m not actually making any money, but I am getting back into the groove. And that was the important thing.
The guitars are straight forward. The only frills on them are an AUM symbol inlayed at the twelfth fret in abalone and an IBeam Element active pickup system installed in each guitar.
The trickiest thing with these two was figuring out how to bend wood binding by hand. At R-V we used the side bending machine to bend the sides and the binding all at once, easy breezy. Now I am bending all my sides by hand with an electric iron which I find really fun to use. Little did I realize just how wet to get the binding before bending. Those suckers were breaking left and right!
My initial idea was to make 5 acoustics all at once. Half way through I was very happy to have only started two builds. Two was plenty to handle and at times, a little overwhelming. But I got through the ups and downs and the “What the’s?” and the “You gotta be kidding me’s?” of the process. I learned what I needed more practice at, what needed more refining and what I want to do differently.
It was good time all the around.
SPECS
-Mahogany back and sides
-Engleman spruce top
-Mahogany neck
-Ebony fretboard and bridge
-Cocobolo binding
-25.5 inch scale
-Lacquer finish on the body and the headstock overlay
Navashen is one of those dudes you meet, where at first you might think him to be quite, but then you realize he operates in the ultra-mellow mind field where very few things can ruffle his strength in calmness. In short, he’s a really cool dude. After seeing a mutual friend’s acoustic I had built, he asked if I would build him one, of course I said I would. When I asked him what he wanted it to be, all he said was “Ananda.” A Sanskrit word meaning Divine Bliss; and also the namesake of the spiritual group we both happen to be a part of. Other than than, it was up to me to make all the decisions.
A few months before he had asked me to build the guitar, my wife and I were in Hawaii visiting family. While there, my Aunt introduced me to Michael Cone, a classical guitar builder and inventor. He was kind enough to welcome me into his shop in Maui where he, my Dad and I talked all things guitar for the whole afternoon. He recommended that I try using Machiche for my backs and sides. When I mentioned this to Navashen, he told me to go for it, and go for it I did.
I decided to go with a Sitka Spruce spruce top to compliment the Machiche back and sides, a Spanish Cedar neck, Indian Rosewood fingerboard, bridge and pins, a 24.625″ scale, bone nut and saddle, and a nitro cellulose finish. For the icing on the cake he had me install a K and K FanTaStick Undersaddle Transducer pickup and to keep the guitar good and safe, a Mono M80 case. Both companies for which I am a dealer, if you happen to be in the market for an awesome sounding acoustic pickup or one of the most well made and conveniently designed cases out there.
I Love the way this guitar sounds. Rich, full, sparkling highs and full of body. I will definitely be using this wood combination again in the future. I think the only things I would like to switch up would to make the body a little bit deeper and try out Macassar Ebony for the fingerboard and bridge; although for this guitar, knowing who it was going to and what it was being used for, it was perfect.
These, as the title suggests, are the first ukuleles that I’ve built. One was built for the Ananda Living Wisdom School Luau Fundraiser Dinner. Every year the middle/high school boys and girls go on separate service-adventure trips. That particular year (2017) the boys went to Hong Kong, where one of the students is from, and they worked with his parents on their farm, studied with a calligraphy master, discussed philosophical studies in Chinese medicine, meditated in ancient temples and went on backpacking adventures through the wild. Not too shabby for a group of high schoolers!
Each student has to raise money for the trip and in addition, the students put on a number of fundraisers; one of which was a Hawaiian Luau and that’s where the ukulele comes in. They asked me if I would build a ukulele for them to auction off. Of course I was delighted to do so.
The mango wood used was a gift from a dear friend of mine Bajrang. He had collected a large amount of it many years previously, but being too busy restoring classic cars (with the high school girls no less) decided to give it to me. Yes!
The second ukulele I built for my Dad’s 64th birthday. I had been working on it, albeit not as much as I should have been, when I realized that he and my Mom were leaving for Hawaii on his birthday at a ridiculous early hour of the morning. With three days left, and lot more to do, I had myself some late nights in the shop. The last night was a doozy; with only hours left I pulled an all nighter; but with a lot of meditation and the grace of the cosmos, I got it done with enough time to drive to Sacramento and deliver it to my Dad, and with only 15 minutes before Uber was to pick them up! Oh what adventures….
Both ukes are basically of the same build; Mango back and sides, spruce top, mahogany neck, rosewood fingerboard, bridge and bridge pins, bone nut and saddle, Grover open gear tuning keys, 17″scale and a Tung oil finish.
They are tenor ukes but on soprano bodies. The mold I used to shape the bodies was gifted to me by my high school shop teacher, Mr. Zasso my senior year. For some strange reason my school was shutting down shop class so my senior year was the last year woodshop was going to be available. Having already built three electric guitars in shop, Mr. Zasso thought in only natural to see if I wanted to take the mold. I didn’t even know it was there! It felt great finally using it after all these years.
They may look rather funny with that almost comically large soundhole, but they do sound really good. Very crisp and clear with a great projection.
This is Dhyan’s guitar. Dhyan is a cool dude. Laid back, super friendly, service-full, teaches meditation, plays in kirtan and likes to play guitar. I guess that last one is a no-brainer, me being a guitar builder and all. I suppose I could write about super irritating people who have no Love for music or guitars and are genuinely depressing; some (or all) politicians come to mind…. But alas, I digress, so where was I? Oh yeah, Dhyan’s guitar.
Well Dhyan’s guitar is pretty straight forward. A mahogany back and sided dreadnought with a sitka spruce top and a Spanish cedar neck topped with a maccassar ebony fingerboard. A bone nut and a bone saddle set into a maccassar ebony bridge. The scale length is 24.750 and the nut width is 1 11/16.
I used tortoise binding with combinations of w/b/w and b/w/b purflings. It was my first time using tortoise for the end wedge. I really like the aesthetic look of the plastic tortoise wedge.
This is the second guitar I’ve finished with a water based lacquer. And, well, meh. I mean, I think the finish came out nicely. It’s just that it seems kinda “plastic-y”. New finish is supposed to burn in well which I did not have much luck with; and that can make touch up work a bit of a bother to say the least.
All in all, I am really happy with how this came out. A classic shape and classic tone woods make for a real nice sounding guitar. No wonder people have been using this combination for so long….
You would be hard pressed to find anybody involved in the Sacramento music scene who hasn’t heard of Brian Chris Rogers. OK, you may not have known his name, but you have most likely seen his face on stage, on TV or heard his voice on the radio. Brian is one of the finest multi-instrumentalists out there playing with the likes of Joe Kye, The J Band, Izabella, founding member of the “Best Jazz Group” SAMMIE winner four years running Four Guys From Reno, Massive Delicious, Bob’s Child, Justin Ferren, The Nibblers, Random Abiladeeze, The Toyes, and The Coalition. He’s been on stages opening up in front of thousands in rallies for Bernie Sanders. He’s toured the country in cars, vans and buses all in the pursuit of musical exploration, camaraderie, and sharing with others what he loves, making music.
In addition to his musical collaborations, Brian is also quite the accomplished solo artist. Being the passionate soul he is, his gear gets a full workout with each show he puts on. Whether it be his looping bass wizardry or his (very) percussive acoustic guitar chops; Brian puts his instruments thru their paces.
As far as I know he only as two stringed instruments; his Pedula bass and his Breedlove acoustic. If he has others, I’ve never seen em; not in my shop, or on stage, or whilst hangin with friends. I could be wrong, whatever….
Both of these guitars have been through the ringer. I’m not sure how many times I’ve replaced the output jack of the Pedula, but I have lost count. If memory serves, he got the Pedula right at the end of our senior year in high school or soon there afterwards. Most fretted instruments need a fret dressing here, a few fret levels there. And after 20-30 years you replace the frets. Not the case for the Pedula. I think it was about two years ago (ten years into it’s life) I gave it a re-fret, and it needed it…. And as is the case with most re-frets, a new nut was needed as well, bone for this one. The only other bit that needed replacing was the E string de-tuner, one of those fancy tuners with the lever that drops the low E to a D with a flip of a switch. Those are neato.
The Breedlove was a fun one to fix up. Brian’s playing style, as I stated before, is very percussive. Lots of using the guitar as a drum, creating loops and rhythms to play on top of. But years of beating upon his guitar soon started to show. First it was a big crack on the top. Then braces were falling off the top. Not cracked braces, or loose braces. Just straight up braces falling out of his guitar! At first I just fixed the crack in the top like I always do with some small cleats glued along the top. This was before braces started to fall out. When Brian told me about the brace, it wasn’t just the brace, it my cleats too! Dude works his guitars….
What I decided to do was basically “inlay” a piece of thin spruce in between the x braces, and the side of the guitar. There was another section I added spruce to in between an ex brace, lower face brace, and the side towards the butt end of the guitar. These are the points that he slams into the most. So I figured after one failed attempt at a repair, that these areas really need some reinforcement. It’s a fine line though from reinforcement to tone sucking piece of wood. It had to be thin enough, but strong. I sanded the spruce to .027″ thick and I oriented the grain to be perpendicular to the top.
I was (and am) really happy with the result. The spruce fit really nicely and it didn’t effect the tone at all.
I don’t know if this goes without saying, but the Breedlove’s frets, yeah I’ve messed with those a lot too. And now that I think about it, I made a new bone nut and saddle for the Breedlove too. I almost forgot….
Please do yourself a favor and check out Brian’s musical world. You will be very happy you did!
Pre operation. You can see the bright strip going across the wood where the finger brace used to be.
The “double top” cut out.
Where it is to be glued in. And yes, I wrote all that on the wood before gluing it in place. Why not add to the Love Brian puts out with every show with a little verbage of my own?…
Gluing in place.
The end result. I am really happy with how well the new spruce fit into place.
One of the most worn cases out there. Not a square inch not covered by the all pervading duct tape!
Prashad is a really cool dude, a great singer, wonderful harpist, and a grand guitarist to boot. Prashad and I live in the same community in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California. We play a lot of music around here, mostly involving Indian/Western Hindu chants and bhajans and many choir pieces that involve guitar as an accompaniment. When he asked me to build him a guitar I was first, thrilled and honored to be asked, and second, I knew very well the musical stylings that were going to be played through it.
There were only a few guidelines from Prashad, more like requests. Prashad isn’t a big dude, and normal sized guitars can be quite fatiguing after a while. “How can we make this guitar easier to play?” was the question at hand.
So we did three things, the first was give it a smaller a smaller body size, an OM. He was used to dreadnoughts so this was an obvious choice. The second was to use a smaller scale, 24.625. And last but not least, we decided to make the neck join the body at the 12th fret, bringing everything that much closer. Oh wait a tic, there is a fourth thing. The nut width we narrowed as well, to 1 5/8.
For the kind of music we all play around here, I have always felt that an OM is the most appropriate, great for fingerpicking and accompanying choirs and it holds it’s clarity in a big kirtan setting when being played along with harmoniums, drums, cymbals, tampuras and large groups of people singing along. The key was to make sure clarity was mixed with warmth and richness, so for the wood selection we went with wenge for the back and sides and cedar for the top. The neck is mahogany and the fingerboard and the bridge are macassar ebony. I really enjoyed this wood pairing, a lot. They all go together very well in a way I would describe as, “Yummy”. Macassar ebony I have been using a lot lately for fingerboards and is becoming one of my favorites. It’s fun to work with, it’s looks are absolutely stunning and to my ears, sounds amazing.
There a number of firsts for me on this guitar, as there tends to be. This was the first OM I’ve had the pleasure of making. It was also the first time using wenge and cedar. This will definitely NOT be the last time those three ingredients go together. This was also the first time making a pinless bridge. I really like the idea of using a pinless bridge. Something about not drilling holes through the top seems to make sense to me. I am mostly happy with the way the bridge came out. It works just fine, it’s just not as easy to install and remove the strings. It’s not hard or anything, but some refining will be needed for future pinless endeavors.
The finish on this guitar is also my time using a water based lacquer, KTM9 used along with Aqua Coat’s pore filler. As of the writing of this I have finished one more guitar with both of these as material choices and my opinions are mixed. The Aqua Coat pore filler is super easy to use but it took an insane number of coats to fill in all the pores. That was really irritating. And as far as the KTM9 goes, it seems like a really nice finish. It shines to a beautiful high gloss and doesn’t add any unwanted tints. I still have a bit to figure out with how to apply the finish; I seem to be using much more than others claim to use. My spray gun is rather old though so maybe that’s it. It couldn’t be user error now could it?…. The next guitar I plan on using KTM9 on I think I will try an epoxy pore filler. It seems like a hassle too but a one coat hassle. A friend of mine also has a much newer spray system that he said I can barrow so we’ll see what happens there.
After all was said and done I put in a B Band pickup under the saddle, and zipped it into it’s new Mono case, which I totally dig, and handed it off to it’s new owner. It was great fun building it, and as always, it was an honor to be a part of it.
Back in June the first acoustic I had the pleasure to build performed at the Ford Theater in Los Angeles, in the very worthy hands of singer/guitarist/violinist extraordinaire Fabio Nani in the Los Angeles based quartet The Joy Singers. The performance took place during a talk given by NayaSwami Kriyananda, a direct disciple of the spiritual powerhouse Paramhansa Yogananda.
Here is a picture of The Joy Singers along with some of their friends performing.
I couldn’t find a link that led to this particular performance but I did find a link that goes to The Joy Singers performing before a “Question and Answer” gathering with NayaSwami Kriyananda at the Biltmore Hotel in L.A.. It’s all audio and starts off with The Joy Singers performing a piece entitled “Why?”
