Guitar No. 54

In February of 2015 I massive ice storm hit my region of the Cumberland Plateau. Driving across I-40 en-route to Knoxville conjured images of no-man's land on the Western front of the Great War. The landscape was covered by the stumps from where the crests of trees had given way to the weight of the ice covering them.

One weekend afternoon was spent assisting local classical guitarists and retired emergency room Doctor, Dave Barger, clearing fallen hemlocks from around his cabin. Luckily none had fallen on it. His neighbors were all working on this same task, one of which offered me a cherry tree that had fallen victim to the storm. Dave helped me load the logs into my SUV and I took them back to the shop. They must of sat in my shop for the better part of three years, Dave asking all the while when I was going to start building a guitar with them. It was Dave's wife that finally followed through with ordering a guitar for his birthday. This guitar is made from the only stable guitar set that I was able to extract from those logs. The rest of the log I used for neck blanks and end blocks