Serial Number 014

The Cat Guitar

In Memory of Parsley

Started on August 1, 2023: completed on September 5, 2023

*updated on March 05, 2025

S/N 014 will the start of Generation 2 guitars. It is just to mark the start of some changes I will start to do or try to do on the guitars.

The biggest thing is to try to have the logos routed right through the guitar head and resin filled. It is still in the works at this point of time but hopefully it will work out without too many issues. I am also considering to routing a large logo into the head stock and resin fill it. Of course, the logo itself would not be whole but it is still something different/unique.

The second change would be to start doing or offering scalloped braces. The Cat Guitar will be the first guitar I have tried to carve scalloped braces. It isn’t too much more work from doing normal bracing but like anything, it takes practice to perfect.

The last thing I will try to implement on guitars is a little more visual presentation – such as the head stock I did for S/N 013. This will go to end flashes and full themed guitars if there is enough creativity to get that looking decent without being overkill.

With that said, S/N 014 is going to have a Red Cedar soundboard – never tried Cedar before – and Figured European Ash for back and sides. Initially, I was going to build a Parlor sized guitar but after seeing how much figure was going through the back panels, I decided to make a larger guitar to use up as much as the board as possible.

A partial cat outline has been stained on the back to add to the cat theme on the guitar. It is subtle which is good.

The guitar seemed a little pale, and to get some more colour, I used a half inch Bloodwood strip in the middle of the neck. The end flash was made a little more fancier by adding a Wenge accent piece on each side of the Ebony and the head was made a little more fancier to match the end flash. I feel a flat Ebony head plate might have been a little more better.

The idea of the cat theme was actually from a set of cat fingerboard stickers.

The strings weren’t centered coming off the fingerboard. After some measuring, it was the bridge pin holes that were off and not the neck angle itself. A cavity was routed into the bridge and filled with epoxy. New bridge pin holes drilled to fix the issue – a new bridge may be made in the futre. Lighter strings have been installed to reduce neck tension.

SPECS

Body Orchestra Model

Scale 25.34″

Top Red Cedar 1A

Back figured European Ash

Sides figured European Ash

Neck White Ash/Bloodwood strip

Fingerboard Indian Ebony

Bridge Ebony

Tuning Machines Gotoh 381

Strings D’Addario EJ26 Phosphor Bronze