Ditson ReTop

[Matthew Jenkins]

Great job Joe and that new top's got some character too.

Are you going to remove the bridge again for finishing? Or are you finishing around it (French Polish?)

Mat

[Dennis Leahy]

Another beauty rolls off the Sustaire bench. Takes guts to rip into a guitar you've built, and know you can re-make it better. Glad you like it!

Dennis

[D_H_G GUITARS]

Joe that is one sweet looking guitar! It realy looks like a guitar one would realy enjoy playing too! Can't wait until the finish is applied.


Thxs
Hugh

[Fred Blom]

Great work on this beauty, Joe. The binding/purfling/rosette schemes are indeed elegant in simplicity, which is an attribute I always appreciate. Congratulations on a terrific re-build (kinda like remastering a recording). What difference will there be in the neck shaping?

[Michael Boyle]

Looks good Joe. Hope you can reuse that pick guard. I have changed a lot of ladder braced to X braced . It always sounds better to me. I hope we can hear that guitar someday.
Michael

[Joe Sustaire]

Thanks for the kind words gentlemen, and the rest of you also.

I'm going to try french polishing with the bridge on Mat, never done one this way but I wanted to make sure I liked the sound of the ladder bracing before I tied up more time/energy in finishing and then found I didn't like it.

Fred the neck is a basic C shape with a very slight V to it down the center. On playing it again I found there was a little too much meat on the shoulders of the C shape, my hand just didn't wrap around it as comfortably as it should. So not a lot of change just a much better feel.

I believe I can reuse the pick guard Michael. I've built one of these x braced and this one I wanted to do a ladder bracing to really hear the difference. Ladder bracing can be great if it's done right, I basically just went to thin the first go round. I'm thinking that ladder bracing more fundamental/less overtone which I think works well with country blues. I don't know, I have a real hard time describing sound or understanding what others mean when they describe sound.

Thanks again everyone for your comments!
Joe

[DaveAnderson]

Good job Joe! It looks really nice.
Congratulations getting it to sound like you wanted.

[Lefty]

Looks like a heck of a job Joe.

Lefty