KATIE’S GUITAR
by
Michael W. Schuette
As some of
you know I build guitars as a hobby. I have recently finished my daughter
Katie’s guitar. It came out real nice so I thought I would share some photos as
many expressed interest.
It has a
nice jazzy Arch Top sound. Most of the wood came from a tree in my front
yard. The red sunburst color is hand mixed dies and nitrocellulose
lacquer with 10+ hand rubbed clear coats. The inlay on the fret board is all
hand cut mother of pearl done on a vine of life theme per Katie’s request.
Starting at the top at the first fret is a compass to guide her life, at
the third is a whale to represent Moby dick and her love of literature. The
fifth is a mermaid which is represents Katie’s life in
The guitar photos hotlinked below are high resolution (~3 megs) to show the details. I probably spent on the order of 600 hours to build this guitar. The mother of pearl design and cutting was something like 200 hours. However I did not keep careful records so it might have been more.
January
2008
