Serial Number 009

First Parlour Build

Started on May 2, 2023: completed on June 1, 2023

*edited on June 03, 2025

S/N 009 was the first attempt at a Parlour sized guitar. Really, it should just be a size difference. I am expecting the build itself to be the same – and I was right.

As always, I need to keep building to gain the experience points to level up.

I wasn’t sure if S/N 010 was going to be finalized in the material list and options so I decided on woods and started on this guitar first. Even though the two guitars are started on the same day, the woods for this guitar was chosen first so it got the serial number of 009.

This Parlour guitar was made with Sitka Spruce for the soundboard and Bubinga for the back and sides set. This is a first to use Bubinga and visually, the back and sides have a decent pattern to it. It is not too flashy in any way but is more than a flat one-coloured piece of wood.

A Bubinga fingerboard and head plate was picked to go on a New Guinea Walnut neck. I made a truss rod cover from Wenge to match the Wenge end flash.

Although the Bubinga was used on a lot of areas on the guitar, the difference in the pattern and colour made them different enough from each other. Even though the intention is to use the same wood on most of the areas, I am not also trying to overkill it.

As for the tone and sound of it. I am just experimenting. Never know what combos will give the guitar something extra. Oddly enough, it seems that the Parlour guitars I build are the loudest in volume.

Upon some research, Walnut is a great option for necks. Black Walnut seems to be the choice but I didn’t happen to have any during the time of this build.

I went with a Mango bridge just to mix it up but I am feeling like I should have made one out of Wenge just to have kept the consistency of the colour/wood theme going on. You can’t see the colour combination in the Mango in the picture unfortunately.

I only found out when I was marking the bridge pin hole locations that the blue prints were for a nylon string Parlour. Because of that, the string spacing, the fingerboard and neck is wider than it needs to be.

On June 01 of 2025, the guitar was picked up for some rework. The headstock was thinned out a little and the neck and heel reworked. The Wenge endflash was damaged and epoxy was used to substitute the wood. It could have turned out better but using epoxy is still experimental.

SPECS

Body 0/Parlour

Scale 24.9″

Top Sitka Spruce

Back Bubinga

Sides Bubinga

Neck New Guinea Walnut

Fingerboard Bubinga

Bridge Mango

Tuning Machines Gotoh 381

Strings D’Addario EJ26