It has been a very busy few months here in The Workshop. The response to our Tulsa model variants has resulted in a massive uptick in the amount of work to do.
I’m still pressing on with the Artist Proofs—trying out ideas I have for future options on my Team Built guitars. The German carve top has proven to be a home run, and the number of customers requesting the back carve is up too.
Right now, I’ve got the “Espresso” Tulsa in the paint room, getting its first coats of nitro. It features a bookmatched top of roasted (torrefied) curly maple. The idea and name came from the color of this piece of wood. I’ve had it in my shop for about three years, and up until now I hadn’t thought of what to do with it. The inspiration came when I used a dark filler on some mahogany for a client who wanted a tobacco shade. When I saw the result, I immediately knew what I was going to use that maple for.
The thing about this torrefied wood is that even though I had glued up the top several years ago, it was still perfectly straight and dead flat in every direction! As skeptical as I was before, I’m convinced that this stuff is extremely stable. In the case of pure white maple, the color change is really drastic, so it’s not for everyone, but it’s perfect for my coffee-themed build.
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