Minerva Fretworks

Old #2 back at it after its sprucing.

This one has been a slow burning project in my pile of projects for about a year now. It is Minerva #2, an all mahogany 13 fret L-2 (banjo tuners, elevated Pickguard, jester inlay).
It was my first regular flattop guitar ( #1 was a Weissenborn) so there was a lot to learn. The most fatal flaw was attempting to glue plastic binding on with hot hide glue (does not work, do not attempt), so after realizing I was going to have to take it apart to rebind it I decided to go whole hog and fix everything about it that was no longer up to s***f. The body was copied from my 1930 Kel Kroydon so structurally and sonically it is very similar to the guitars I'm building now (it's actually lighter) but the neck carve and varnish left a lot to be desired. So now its had new binding, a neck reset, new fingerboard, new bridge, new neck carve, and is ready for frets and a hopefully much improved varnish. It's been bittersweet but fun to see it go from then to now.

This one sold in the last batch at and never got a full post here, so here it is.
This one was a bench copy of a solid lined 1933 L-00 that I took extensive notes on and then built as close as I could.
One neat detail from some 1933 small burst L-00's I was not aware of until recently is the inverted rosette in the first photo (Black/white/black instead of white/black/white). The YouTube channel will hip you to all sorts of such info if you haven't gone down that rabbit hole. It's a wonderful resource!

'Bout to put the shine to this 1931 Cremona Burst. This is my first Cremona Burst but it's got me thinking. Who wants a Cremona Burst Roy Smeck?