This August is the 20th anniversary of Tom Rodriguez Guitars and his making of classical guitars. To commemorate this huge milestone, Tom has started on a very special 20th anniversary guitar. All materials on this anniversary guitar are old and extremely rare which Tom has been collecting through his years of building and saving for a very special occasion, such as this. Following is the list of materials included in this build:
Top – 40 year old Sitka spruce purchased from the estate of an old guitar maker. Tom hand picked it from 30 sets that were bought for its tap tone, stiffness and fine grain
Back & sides, peg head and bridge – 1800’s Brazilian rosewood from an old table top
Fingerboard – 40 year old ebony, hand picked for it’s beauty from a large selection of ebony fingerboards from the same collection of wood that the top came from
Neck – 1800’s Honduras mahogany, salvaged from an old 4 post bed – very dark in color and a singing tap tone
Brace wood – Hand-split Sitka spruce from the back supports of a 90 year old Cable piano
Linings – Quarter-sawn willow, the preferred choice of violin makers, 90 years old, from the same piano as the brace wood
Nut & Saddle – Fossil walrus ivory, 100 to 500 years old
Rosette & bindings – Brazilian rosewood, holly, cherry and ebony, all from various salvages and re-purposing projects
“One need only look at the quality of this wood, all of it having a history of it’s own, to imagine the character of sound that will emanate from this guitar. Celebrating 20 years of building is no small feat. Few makers ever reach that milestone and to do so you have to have an extreme love of the craft and desire to put music in the world. That’s what Tom Rodriquez and this guitar represent. We are simply delighted to be a part of this, this is why we do what we do here at Dream Guitars.” – Paul Heumiller, Owner
1800’s Brazilian rosewood salvaged from an antique table top
Detail of 40+ year old Sitka spruce top wood
Quartersawn bridge blank cut from the same 1800’s table – underneath it is the trimmed off piece with the tax stamps still on it
Detail of the hand split Sitka spruce brace wood from a 1925 Cable piano
Split Sitka spruce brace wood from a 1925 Cable piano
1800’s Honduras mahogany neck heel from an old bed – you can still see the edges of the turned legs before being trimmed away
Headstock with 1800’s mahogany and Brazilian rosewood
Here at Dream Guitars, we discovered early on that one element of selling world-class guitars online was missing for our online customers: the sound. We then became perhaps the first online dealer of guitars to offer sound samples by recording every guitar we have in stock, played by any number of our favorite friends. In fact, we made every effort to use snippets of the same song for each guitar to give customers a great point of tonal reference.
As a result, we have put together two videos: one with 
