My New Guitar - Bog Oak
One of the guitars that really caught my eye when I first got into luthiery twenty years ago was one of Gary Southwell’s A- Series guitars with back and sides of Bog oak. The wonderful video at the bottom of this page explains the history of Bog oak better than I could so I encourage you to watch it. I was lucky enough to obtain a couple of sets a few years back and I decided to use one to build myself a new guitar in the hope that it might jumpstart my guitar playing once again. I used a well-aged top of Swiss spruce which may have more color and mottling than most players might like but I am a wood lover and enjoy the anomalies and color found in some of this old spruce. The detailing is simple with a black and white rosette inspired by the exquisite asymmetrical rosettes that Southwell has used on some of his guitars. I also installed my version of a zero fret which has a hand shaped stainless steel blank inserted into a pocket to allow for more adjustability than most zero fret designs. Having never built with this wood before, the sound of the guitar has exceeded my expectations with rich basses, a very robust mid-range, warm round trebles and an unusual amount of sustain.
Note that for some reason this Youtube video starts in the middle ….just use the slider bar to start it from the beginning.