What kine wood? Da Koa kine wood bruddah!

So I got my package from Certainly Wood today, and I am excited to say I got a couple of fine pieces of Koa wood. This delivery seems like its the tipping point of the project now, up until now, everything I have been dealing with has been with jigs and preparation. But now, I got the wood that will make up the backs and sides of this guitar. It settled in as "Wow, I am really going to do this!" this is "Actually happening" I have to say I am pretty stoked about it. I don't think I have had a project like this in a long time that i was this enthralled by.

Now that I have the veneers, I'll have to start focusing on building my vacuum bagging system. I currently have a portable automobile air compressor that I am converting to a vacuum pump. I'll have more information on that in my next post as well as the construction of my vac system via http://www.joewoodworker.com this site has a tremendous wealth of information on a DIY vac system which I'll be following.

But for now Koa!!!

Sneak peak while at the office, ooohh ahh! However florescent light really doesn't do it justice.

This is a little bit more like it! Under incadecent light the vibrance is noticeable.

Another shot of the koa unrolled. You can see the koa has really nice figure. Will look really nice when it has a finish!

Here's the end piece of the two pieces. Not to wild about texture of that end piece. Fortunately enough I got about 11 feet worth of koa to work with!

Had to cut off some of it which will make up the sides of the guitar. At this angle, the colors are ultra rich, but could be just my iPhone's camera! Very perty wood!

Needless to say these pics really don't do the wood much justice, the camera on the iPhone leaves a lot to be desired and has a lot of problems with grain and boosting the greens too much. Almost every picture not shot outside pretty much has to have some color correction to get back to proper color. Even then there is only so much you can do. So at some point, I'll have to get a semi decent point and shoot digital cam to log the progress of my build. I'd like to get a Digital SLR like a Nikon D90, but at this point it wouldn't be fiscally responsible to make such a purchase, when there are other more important things to spend my money on. So for now something simple will have to suffice. Guess I'll have to do my homework on point and shoots.

Till next time,

Grego!