John Smith’s 12 String

In an ideal world, I would spend all of my time making “Personal Selection” instruments, where all of the choices are mine, but of course that would rely upon finding enough customers with the same taste as me. So far it has worked very well, but I do have a fall back position, where customers ask me to make something, and I ignore most of what they say.

John’s a good friend, and he wanted a 12 string with a difference. He particularly wanted cocobolo, and since I haven’t made many guitars with that timber it gave me several opportunities to have some fun. Part of the deal was that he would need a cutaway ~ not usually needed on a 12 string, and he wanted my name on it. Here it is, John likes it, I like it, and Mike’s camera likes it.

I suppose I must point out that, on a good day, I do sometimes agree to do what a customer wants.