From Steve Grimes: The Brazilian rosewood is from a batch of it that luthier Michael Gurian had milled in Brazil in 1967. Gurian used to not only supply his factory with tonewood, but also sold wood to Martin, Guild, Gibson, and many independent luthiers. It was from a group of sets of this Brazilian that he took to his home shop, while the rest of the sets went to his factory. All of the sets taken to his factory (over 3000) went up in smoke when his factory burned down in 1979. Soon after he switched from making guitars to making guitar parts for the industry, and moved to Seattle in 1989. I met him and we became friends and he sold many of the old Brazilian sets to me. Today, wood of this character (straight grained, quartersawn) cannot be found at any price.

From grimesguitars.com: This double sound hole guitar was originally designed for and made popular by Keola Beamer, the great Hawaiian slack key artist. It has an astounding capability to produce a deep, rich tone with a bass response previously unattainable in a similarly sized body. By moving the soundhole away from the end of the fingerboard, a larger area of the top can be utilized to achieve a bigger sound overall. The transverse brace, usually located just behind the soundhole in front of the bridge, can be moved up to the end of the fingerboard, effectively “opening” up the tone producing potential of the soundboard. The Beamer model is great for players who like a deep bass, especially those playing “slack key” style or using tunings with “D” or “C” in the bass.

Here’s a VIDEO DEMO

• top: master grade German Spruce

• b&s: old top-shelf Brazilian rosewood

• nut: 1.72”

• scale: 25”

• recently Plekked

• pickup: Go Acoustic hexaphonic

• lower bout: 14-3/8”