Back To Solvent Lacquer & Owl Tone Holes

A few weeks ago, Richard put some information on Facebook about switching to a water based lacquer. After doing some testing, he has decided to switch back to the old solvent based lacquer we had been using. There are some huge advantages to the water based lacquer - the biggest one being that it is safer to use - no fear of explosions, and not toxic. The reason we are switching back is purely appearance. The old lacquer soaks into the wood a little more giving it a "wet" look. The woods look a little darker and the grain pops a little more.

While troubleshooting the lacquer, we ended up with a backlog of interesting instruments. I actually have multiple instruments with state outlines as toneholes. I have multiple birds, and plenty of other interesting shapes. Below I'll show you some of my favorites (some in the done stage, and some pictures I took while building them).

Owl tone holes. These owls are rosewood with wenge and maple inlays.

Here are the owls before I put them in the walnut soundboard.

I'm sure most of you can guess where we'll be shipping this instrument :) The one to its right will be going to someone I'm sure most of you have heard of - Dave Haas. Look for it or something like it when you see Dave selling instruments at festivals.

Many of you have seen the double backs that we do on dulcimers. Here is a look at the spacers that are between the two backs. As you can see, they go just around the outside edge of the instrument leaving the entire middle surface of the inner back free to vibrate. This particular instrument was also special in that it was being built for someone that really wanted a "short" instrument - by short, I'm not referring to the scale length, but to the distance between the bottom and the top. This instrument was built on our big body, but instead of 2 1/4" sides, we used 1 3/4" sides. We also used very thin spacers between the two backs making it even shorter. It should have a lot more sound though than your traditional shallow bodied instrument.