While most of the instruments I build follow traditional styling, from time to time a customer has a vision for something out of the ordinary. Two mandolins I recently finished fit that description.
The first is made from 100% Pacific Northwest woods: Englemann spruce top, quilted bigleaf maple back sides & neck, walnut binding, madrone fingerboard and headstock. In order to show off the uniqueness of the wood, the buyer asked me to finish it entirely natural, with no stain. The results were, in my opinion, stunning!
In contrast, another customer requested a red sunburst stain rather than the amber and brown colors used on most traditional instruments. He also wanted to avoid obscuring the wood grain (in this case birdseye sugar maple) so I kept the colors relatively light rather than the opaque vignetting around the edges of a more traditional sunburst.
I often describe my custom building approach as a co-creation process with the buyer. One of the joys of this approach is that they push me toward forms of beauty that I would likely never conceive of by myself.
Both of these instruments belong to performing musicians who are as excited about their tone as their looks. What a thrill to participate in the process of creating such visual and sonic beauty!