Serial Number 031

Parlour

Started on August 01, 2024: completed on August 31, 2024

From looking at what I have available, it appears that I have only one right handed Parlour guitar for customers to try out. I feel two of each kind of guitar is a good number. A customer can at least compare two of the same bodied guitar.

This Parlour would be the first time I tried Maple for the back and sides set. With the volume I get out of my Parlour guitar builds, I had decided on Engelmann for the soundboard to see how much it would change the volume and tone of the guitar. It would be interesting to compare guitars when this one is completed.

I decided on using Purple Heart for a custom rosette and binding to give the body some more colour since the Maple is a light grained wood. I did it with S/N 004 which had bitter Cherry for the back and sides set and thought it turned out well. I also don’t want the two guitars to look identical either.

With only few choices on neck woods I have available, I went with Khaya with a Purple Heart lamination. A new tonewood will be used for the fingerboard: fumed Eucalyptus. The pieces I had received look quite interesting: I believe some of them have some figure throughout the boards.

I am still having issues with finding Purple Heart, I did find some pieces I had lying around – big enough to cut two pieces for bridges. However, only when I went to glue on the Purple Heart bridge, I noticed that the piece had twisted.

I like Purple Heart but it is a gamble to put the heat gun to the wood to bring out the deep purple it can have. I have noticed for the most part, if you let the colour come back naturally, it isn’t as dark. Maybe it takes a long time before it get dark – I am not really sure. The Purple Heart pieces on this guitar are all over the map in terms of colour. From trying it on S/N 004, I tried to be careful how much I heated up the Purple Heart.

Here are a couple of photos of the flame figure going through the back and sides. There is much more going on in the sides than the back

SPECS

Body Parlour

Scale 24.9″

Top Engelmann 1A

Back Flame Maple 4A

Sides Flame Maple 4A

Neck Khaya African Mahogany/Purple Heart

Fingerboard fumed Eucalyptus

Bridge Purple Heart

Tuning Machines Gotoh 381

Strings D’Addario EJ26