The first two guitars built in my shop this year are finished! Bernie from Ohio came back to build two more guitars with me. These two guitars were built with sonically tested soundboards from Pacific Rim Tonewoods, one of the sponsors at the Lutherie Academy. Check out their website to learn the advantages of using sonically tested wood. Bernie wanted to build two identical guitars, except he decided to use one top that was 60 grams lighter than the other top. We built the two guitars exactly the same, although we altered the top thickness on the denser top so that the top frequencies we very similar for the both tops during the construction phase. We added a fourth back brace as we wanted a non live back for both guitars and we also added carbon fiber under and over each of the fan braces. This was to eliminate the top deflection and deformation under stress as well as add some stiffness. The top frequencies for both guitars we almost identical on the finished guitars. The guitar with the denser top came out to be 202hz and the lighter top was exactly 200hz. We were shooting for 200hz. The idea behind the guitars was to prove you can get similar results using wood with different properties, and we did with these two guitars. Trevor Gore likes to say that you can't always use the wood you like but sometimes have to use the wood you have. If you know what you are doing you can still get the desired results. 
In addition to making two guitars we also found time to make pizza and bread. What a fun week!
The next student this month will be making a double top. He just sent me a box of some beautiful Brazilian rosewood sets to be used for back and sides. Stay tuned for details and pics in the coming week.