Cavins tenor guitar - Part 3: Design and wood choices

This is Part 3 of my series chronicling design, construction, and eventual delivery of a tenor guitar built by David Cavins. See Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

We're now a couple of months into the process, and we have finalized most of the design decisions. David has also started construction on the top and back, and is currently getting ready to dive into the neck. Here are the specs:

• Top - Adirondack spruce
• Back, sides, and neck - Flamed sugar maple
• Fretboard and bridge - Honduran rosewood fretboard with pearl dot inlays, radiused; bridge TBD
• Binding and accents - Hormigo center strip down the middle of the neck and back; hormigo and maple rosette
• Headstock veneer - Honduran rosewood or hormigo, with a maple center wedge
• Finish - Light sunburst top, body, and neck
• Hardware - Banjo tuners

While there are still a few design decisions to make, the guitar is starting to come together. David has been documenting the build process on his blog (see here). Here are some pictures I pulled from his site:

The sugar maple back, getting ready to be joined.

The Adirondack spruce top with the rosette installed.

The top and back, with the rough bracing.

David put these samples together to show the accents. Understated, elegant, and classic.

This is a previous tenor guitar he built in 2012, with a light sunburst finish on a sugar maple body. David photoshopped the version on the right to show me what it would look like with a backstrip. Mine will be similar (with the backstrip), with a slightly darker full-body sunburst.

See Part 4 here.