Got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about Baroque style guitars after a December visit to the Musical instrument Museum of Scottsdale Arizona.

While I was there, the museum had a special showing of guitars from the age of Stradivarius including a guitar from himself and a bunch of other examples from the late baroque period.

Up til now I have been making ukulele with maple soundboards because I happened to have a lot of it lying about. But this time thought I would play with some spruce and cedar, materials more usual for this sort of job. just before we travelled, I sliced it up into an appropriate thickness and let it air dry for the nearly 3 weeks we were away.

I chose baroque style for several reasons.

• They’re a bit more compact
• There’s usually interesting inlay work
• The sound hole parchment rosettes.

Having made the mold, I’m likely to make several iterations. The first will be nylon string. The next will be steel string. Out of character for the type, but I want one…

I think I’m mostly interested in the parchment rosette…