Hubby’s new toy.

The long-awaited for newest object of my husband’s affection is finally in his hands, literally. Several months ago he commissioned a guitar from a luthier in town which he was finally able to pick up a few days ago. On Sunday afternoon we had the master craftsman over to celebrate with champagne and nibblies. I took pictures.

The top is bubinga, a wood from Africa that is as hard as ebony and a beautiful red colour. The body is hollowed-out mahogany, and the whole is finished with a high gloss lacquer.

The pick guard is oiled bubinga. The fingerboard is ebony, inlaid with gold mother-of-pearl half-moons and bubinga sunbursts at the 12th and 22nd frets.

The pickup casings are maple, instead of the usual plastic,

and the luthier even put my husband’s initials in the tail piece, using old piano-key ivory.

The final touch is the luthier’s logo in gold mother-of-pearl.

It’s not only beautiful to the eye, but it sounds very fine. If you count carefully, you’ll notice that there are seven strings, the extra being a low one that just rings like a piano. As you can imagine, Hubby is having a lot of fun with it.

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