Here's the lineup of my usual suspects. A stringed instrument is built both of hard woods and soft woods. I give two choices on soft wood - piranah and western red cedar - for the top. Everything else listed is a hard wood from which we would make the sides, back, and neck. I always make my bridges and fretboards out of rosewood. Now after you've seen this list, keep in mind that there are several wood possibilities that I'm not even going to list here. I see that I have a little bit of purple heart in stock, but not enough to offer as a standard thing. I have two big boards that are flamed and figured poplar. And when those two boards are gone, I'll probably never see anything like that again. I can hold in one hand all of the pink ivory I have. Also, at an additional cost, spruce is a possibility for the top. Concerning piranha, I need to tell you more than I actually know. I have been offering piranha for the tops of my acoustic instruments for 14 years now. However, a couple of years ago, an embargo was placed against the importing of piranha. When powerful and important people do things, I am usually not privileged to know why. All I know is that when my present stock of piranha is gone, there will be no more. For all practical purposes, I am out of piranha for the tops of guitars. At present, there is still enough piranha in my shop for maybe 8 or 10 mandolins. If the woods in my lineup look like something you would like, then that's what we would work with. If you need to see something else that I have in stock but am not advertising, then you can inquire about it. All of the woods that I show here can be had at no additional charge, except for black walnut. I have to charge an additional $50 for it.
Included in the price of my instruments is a very nice, thick, padded gig bag. It has 20mm of padding. If a person is handling their own instruments, then this gig bag is probably all you’ll ever need.
Sometimes folks need a hard case. I can get those for about $75. In the event that a person gets me to build an instrument that will not fit in a gig bag or a hard case, I will build a hard case for $100 plus $25 for shipping.
The wiring for one of my mandolins is as follows: one piezo pick-up hard glued to the inside of the top and connected to a jack in the tail block. Also it comes with a 7 band Danelectro EQ that can be had as a belt pack or a floor mount. The cost per instrument is $125.00.
The wiring for one of my guitars as follows: two piezo pick-ups hard glued to the inside of the top and connected to a jack in the tail block. Also it comes with a 7 band Danelectro EQ that can be had as a belt pack or a floor mount. The cost per instrument is $125.00.
There are lots of other ways to wire an acoustic guitar, and I will do what a person wants if it is something I’m able to do. We will work out the price for any other wiring configuration.
I use Ping covered machine heads on my guitars, and Ping mandolin tuners. Ping is a company that is owned by Charles Kaman. He is the owner of Ovation Guitars. These are the same machine heads my family and I have on our personal instruments. However, any machine heads that a person may want can be had, and we will work out the price.
My shop is too humble to try to stock all of the strings that can possibly be had. I keep Martin strings in stock for acoustic guitars (light and extra light phosphorous bronze), banjo strings, electric guitar, 12 string guitar, mandolin, and bass. When I build an instrument where sets of strings cannot be readily be found, I use D’Addario strings in nickel wound. I buy them in bulk, and just pull out the sizes that I need.
My son-in-law has started working with me, and in particular what he’s doing is burning images into instruments. I have turned a lot of this kind of work down because my eyes are just not very good and my hands are not as steady as they used to be. He does such an exceptional job that I’m giving him this work to do.
My son-in-law can burn most any image you want. Folks just tell me what they want, and he tells me what he’ll charge. And the truth is, I don’t mark up or make any kind of profit off of his work. I just do what I do, and I pay him for what he does.