Thanks.

The hats have the logo below. Daren is the director of the Atomic City Children's Theater in Los Alamos, NM. This year we all got ACCT hats for Christmas.

Top being glued to the bowl.

Yes, that's the 1117-4 top being glued at the same time. If I had more bench space I would have glued the other two tops at the same time.

Actually, pretty similar.

Both Paul's 1117 and your 1528 have Adirondack spruce tops. Yours is just a little darker.

What is different about these four guitars is how the tops sound when they're tapped.

Paul's 1117 is the most hollow sound, followed by the 1612. This isn't really surprising because they're both deep bowls with similar brace patterns. I attribute the difference to the Adi top and hand-laid bowl on the 1117, with the Sitka spruce top and SMC bowl on the 1612.

Next is the 1778T, followed by your 1518. Again, not surprising because the 1778T is a medium depth bowl and yours is a super-shallow bowl.

Don't get me wrong, they all will sound great. Just different from each other.

I worked the Baltimore Consort concert this evening. Ronn McFarlane was nice enough to share his lute with me (to look at and photograph, not play - more about Ronn's custom lute here - Ronn kept his lute in his hand the entire concert; even during breaks!). This lute is about a year old and was built by Travis Carey.

I told Ronn about my luthier bro, Dan and his plans to built a wooden back Ovation. I also talked to him about Dan using torrified wood, and explained the significance of what it is and why it's used.

I was surprised that the lute is actually sections of flat bent wood rather than a true round back.

More of the back.

All of the Baltimore Consort's string instruments had intricately carved sound holes. As is usually the case in life, I wish I had taken more photos of the other instruments.

The fretting was interesting. It was string that wrapped around the neck. As Ronn explained it, it allowed for minor adjustments in tuning, unlike a guitar with it's permanent frets. Rather than re-tie the string frets, when adjustments are made, they insert little pieces of toothpicks to maintain the necessary tension.

Speaking of torrefied wood guitars, I see now that Ibanez is offering a guitar that has, not only torrefied Adirondack spruce top with torrefied Adi X-braces, but also a torrefied East Indian rosewood (EIR) back, torrefied mahogany neck, torrefied EIR fretboard and torrefied EIR bridge.

IOW, it's the closest thing to a 300-year-old wood-box guitar that anyone can buy. I would imagine the sound is nothing short of spectacular. (or, close to how your Aspen AD-35 sounds - LOL!)

See: Ibanez AVD80

I don't think they're available in the USA yet, but the street price in Europe is €1,599 ($1696)

Wow, I repaired my first Steinway today. Or, more accurately, I repaired it yesterday (didn't take before photos), and let the glue dry until today.

We have a regular guy who services the Steinway before concerts. When he was in here for the Joshua Bell concert, he noticed that a piece of felt had come loose and was interfering with one of the lower E keys. He fixed it with Tite-Bond, but as it's a wood glue, it really needs 24 hours to cure. He only had a few hours before the concert.

Sometime after the concert, the glue joint failed and the felt again folded over to interfere with the key. I spoke to him and we identified the problem, and I fixed it.

I searched for something to use as a clamp to hold the felt in place. As it turns out, paint stirring sticks were the perfect width.

A close up of the wood clamping the felt in place. It also worked a mask to keep the glue from dripping on (or into) the keys. I used a narrow screw driver as a palate knife.

All fixed.

Steinway CD 341 is ready for action!