New Era Guitar with Tony Klassen It's almost done!
Last December luthier Tony Klassen began work on a new guitar for me; something unique and original. Tony is known for his amazing re-creations of vintage instruments and I had shown him the turn of the century birch 9 string guitar I had restored.  In short order, we had made plans to build a new guitar based on the original. I joined Tony for the first 2 days of construction and got the chance to help on the build. Check out my photo album for more pictures of the instrument in progress. Below is the story of the original 9 string restoration. When I visited him last fall to discuss the build, he had just completed two new “Senoritas”, a guitar Fretboard magazine described as the gaudiest guitar ever made!  One was for Stephen Grossman, the other for Country Joe McDonald.  Check out Tony’s web site www.arkneweraguitars.com for pictures of his amazing work including shots of the 2 Senoritas.
Restorating a parlor guitar

This is an early 20th century parlor guitar given to me by my friend Steve Endsley in pieces in a bag (he made me pay him the $1.79 he spent at the auction).  It was a nine string guitar, possibly a Stromberg Vossonette made of birch, ladder braced with a trapeze bridge and tail piece.

Clearly it was beyond any collectable value so I decided to  experiment a bit.

I reassembled the pieces, changed the top from ladder braced to scalloped X braced and replaced the trapeze bridge with a fixed bridge.  The guitar had been apart for so long that it no longer fit together and had to stay in the body frame for over a year to slowly get it back to shape.
  
Here it is being glued together again.  When I got it all finished and strung up, the tone was amazing; clear doubled notes on the high end, strong but not dominant bass.  It’s perfect for slide guitar and was used on the Shawneetown track of the Lincoln in Song CD.  I plan on putting it to a lot more use on the next recording project.