Let Me Introduce 'Fiorella'

'Fiorella', little flower, at least that is what my Italian guide says she is, just left my shop.

She is a dreadnought acoustic guitar built on the same platform as the other dreads I've created.

The body is exotic bocote wood sides and back with sitka spruce top and African mahogany binding. Internally, 'x' bracing is spruce. Mahogany 14-fret neck with pearl inlay position markers. Custom multi-wood headstock overlay with recessed tuner nut pockets and embossed 'T'; soundhole rosette; tailpiece inlay, heel cap and back accents; and special flower-design wood inlay at the base of the top. The bridge is polished rosewood with corian saddle, and abalone inlayed ebony bridge pins. Grover tuners tension Martin Marquis strings over a corian nut.

The headstock overlay is designed with eight specially hand fitted pieces of exotic wood (rosewood, zebrawood, yellowheart, wqalnut purpleheart, redheart, and mahogany).






The soundhole rosette is also a custom design of nineteen specially hand-shaped pieces of exotic wood (zebrawood, rosewood, walnut, bocotte, purpleheart, yellowheart, redheart, maple, ovangkol, bloodwood, and mahogany).

This photo of the back shows the unique grain of the bocotte wood.




The heel cap and extension inlay are also created from individual pieces of exotic wood.










The exotic wood inlay at the bottom of the back matches up with the end cap inlay, which also matches up with the position of the inlay at the base of the top.

Ebony end pin with abalone inlay.

And, finally, the 'little flower' rose inlay, which is created from twenty-one individual pieces of exotic wood glued together into one piece, appears to be inserted into the top of a vase created from rosewood and purpleheart.