King Billy Pine
Athrotaxis selaginoides
- Origin
- Tasmania
- Sourcing
- Recycled timber
- Density
- 345 (bracing 367) kg/m³
- Supplier
- Australian Tonewoods
- CITES
- Not listed · IUCN Vulnerable
Timbers
Endemic means found naturally in one place and no other. Every timber here is endemic to Australia and sustainably sourced.
Tasmanian Blackwood
Acacia melanoxylon
- Origin
- Tasmania
- Sourcing
- Special species timber
- Density
- 640 kg/m³
- Supplier
- Australian Tonewoods
- CITES
- Not listed · IUCN Least Concern
Silver Ash
Flindersia bourjotiana
- Origin
- Wet tropics, far north Queensland
- Sourcing
- Sawn stock
- Density
- 670 kg/m³
- Supplier
- Australian Tonewoods
- CITES
- Not listed
Queensland Maple
Flindersia brayleyana
- Origin
- Wet tropics, far north Queensland
- Sourcing
- Sawn stock
- Density
- 518 kg/m³
- Supplier
- Australian Tonewoods
- CITES
- Not listed
Gidgee
Acacia cambagei
- Origin
- Inland Queensland / NSW
- Sourcing
- Reclaimed fence timber
- Density
- 1,182 (bridge 1,140) kg/m³
- Supplier
- Carving and Turning Timber
- CITES
- Not listed
Tiger Myrtle
Nothofagus cunninghamii
- Origin
- Tasmania
- Sourcing
- Special species timber
- Density
- 625 kg/m³
- Supplier
- Australian Tonewoods
- CITES
- Not listed · IUCN Least Concern
Yellowbox Burl
Eucalyptus melliodora
- Origin
- VIC to southern QLD
- Sourcing
- Burl
- Density
- 1,075 kg/m³
- Supplier
- Carving and Turning Timber
- CITES
- Not listed
Mulga
Acacia aneura
- Origin
- Arid inland Australia
- Sourcing
- Sawn stock
- Density
- 1,100 kg/m³
- Supplier
- Australian Tonewoods
- CITES
- Not listed
Native Olive
Notelaea ligustrina
- Origin
- Tasmania
- Sourcing
- Sawn stock
- Density
- 990 kg/m³
- Supplier
- Australian Tonewoods
- CITES
- Not listed
Blackheart Sassafras
Atherosperma moschatum
- Origin
- Tasmania
- Sourcing
- Special species timber
- Density
- 620 kg/m³
- Supplier
- Australian Tonewoods
- CITES
- Not listed · IUCN Least Concern
The build record
Selecting the timber
Boards are chosen for grain orientation, stiffness across and along the fibre, and colour under a wet rag. Quartersawn stock for plates, the soundboard is tapped and listened to before a single cut is made.
Designing the moulds and jigs
With the boards chosen, the tooling comes before any of them is cut to shape. The outline is modelled in CAD to the phi proportions that govern the instrument, the same ratios that fix the body length, the lower bout, the waist and the placement of the soundhole, so the curve carries the geometry exactly rather than approximately.
Jointing and thicknessing the plates
The two halves of the soundboard and the back are shot on a jointer plane until the seam disappears under a straightedge, then glued. Plates are brought down to thickness gradually, testing deflection and tap tone as material comes off.
Setting the rosette and cutting the soundhole
A channel is routed around the soundhole and the Tiger Myrtle rosette ring is set into it, cut from the same material as the binding and the end graft, then levelled flush with a scraper. The soundhole is cut last.
Bracing the back
The back is built to work rather than to reflect. In most guitars the back is stiff enough to act as a wall behind the soundboard; here it is thicknessed and braced so that it moves with the air in the box and radiates in its own right, which is what an active back means.
Bracing the soundboard
The soundboard is falcate braced, the system set out by Trevor Gore with Gerard Gilet in Contemporary Acoustic Guitar Design and Build. Falcate means sickle shaped: rather than a straight X, the braces are long curves that sweep out of the upper bout and around the bridge in crossing pairs.
Making the bridge
The design of the bridge is pinless, specifically created for this instrument and inspired by the work of Michihiro Matsuda. It is sawn from reclaimed birdseye Gidgee and carved by hand.
Creating the Florentine cutaway
A Florentine cutaway is the sharp-cornered kind, and it is normally cut from the same timber as the sides so that it disappears into them. This one does the opposite.
Bending, lining and closing the box
The Blackwood sides are bent over a hot iron and clamped to a mould. Blackheart Sassafras lining is bent to match and then glued to the length of both edges, giving the rim its stiffness and the plates a proper gluing surface.
Testing and refining the response
The plate is tapped at a node and the sound recorded a few centimetres away with a directional microphone, which hears the timber and not the room. An FFT turns that tap into a frequency plot, and the peaks show where the plate wants to move: the air resonance of the box, the main top mode and the back mode.
Making the neck and fingerboard
The Silver Ash neck is carbon-fibre reinforced and carries a two-way adjustable truss rod. The Gidgee fingerboard is radiused to 16 inches and slotted for twenty frets, the slots cut to depth against the radius so every fret seats along its whole length.
Binding and carving the arm bevel
Channels are routed around the top and back edges and the Tiger Myrtle binding is bent, fitted and glued in. The end graft is inlet at the tail also from the same timber so the figure runs right around the instrument.
Aligning the neck with the body
The neck is fitted to the body before anything is finished. The heel is pared back in small cuts until it sits against the rim with no gap anywhere along the joint, and the centreline of the fingerboard is checked against the centre of the soundhole and the bridge position.
Installing the machine heads
The tuner holes are drilled through the head plate on the drill press, backed underneath with a scrap block so the bit cannot tear out the Gidgee backstrap as it breaks through. Each hole is then countersunk to seat the press-in bushing flush with the face, the bushings are pressed home, and the six Schaller GrandTune tuners are set on the back and screwed down.
Polishing
The instrument is french polished. Shellac is dissolved in ethanol and carried by a rubber, a wad of cotton wrapped in linen, worked over the surface in small circles with a trace of oil as a lubricant.
Setting up and finishing
The bridge is located off the scale length, clamped and glued to the soundboard, and the saddle and nut are cut and dressed to height. Then the setup: action, relief, intonation and the first hour of playing it in.
The instrument
648mmScale length
495mmBody length
390mmLower bout
23gBridge weight
2026Australia
241mmWaist
298mmUpper bout
110mmBody depth, tail
105mmBody depth, neck
46mmNut width
55mmString spacing
20Frets
Logistics
- Where it is
- At the desk34 workshop, Walsh Bay, Sydney
- Dispatch
- Not yet dispatched
- Travels in
- A fitted hard case, humidified in dry conditions
This section is updated whenever the instrument changes hands or location, so the passport and the guitar stay in the same place as each other.
Ownership
Owner access
Sign in with OriginsNext
A voluntary passport, structured to follow the published EU Digital Product Passport system standards (EN 18216–18246). No EU product-specific rule currently applies to musical instruments, so nothing here is issued under a legal obligation. It is published because the information is worth having.
Care
- Relative humidity
- 45–55%
- Temperature
- 15–27 °C
- Storage
- In its case, with a case humidifier in dry conditions
- Cleaning
- Dry or barely damp cotton cloth only
Below about 40% relative humidity the top sinks and the fret ends begin to feel proud; above about 65% the top swells and the action rises. Never leave the instrument in a closed vehicle. Loosen the strings a quarter turn for long storage or air freight. The finish is french polish under carnauba wax, so do not use guitar polish, silicone, alcohol or solvent cleaners on it.
Use & service
- 2026Final setup and first string-updesk34 guitars, Sydney
- Reversibility
- Structural joints are made with reversible adhesivesA top can be removed and refitted by a competent luthier without destroying the instrument.
- Finish repair
- French polish is spot-repairableUnlike a thick lacquer, a damaged area can be dressed back, re-polished and re-waxed locally.
- User-serviceable
- Strings, truss rod adjustment, saddle heightEverything else should go to the maker or a qualified repairer.
- Service interval
- A setup check every 12–24 months
Travel & compliance
- CITES
- None of the species used are listed in the CITES AppendicesNo CITES permit or musical instrument certificate is required to cross a border with this guitar. The status is re-checked at each passport revision.
- EU Deforestation Regulation
- The finished instrument sits outside EUDR Annex IAnnex I covers wood under HS chapters 44, 47, 48 and parts of 94. Musical instruments fall under HS chapter 92 and are not listed.
- Species substitution
- No rosewood, ebony or other imported restricted species is used
This passport lists the status of the species used. It is not legal advice, and not a claim of compliance with a regulation that does not apply.
Resale
- Ownership transfer
- The passport moves with the instrument
- Authenticated resale
- A buyer can confirm the instrument before money moves
- After a transfer
- The previous owner keeps nothing but their place in the history
- Warranty on resale
- Lifetime cover stays with the original owner
A transfer is made by the current owner releasing the instrument from their OriginsNext account and the buyer claiming it with the transfer token. The build record, the timbers and the service history carry across unchanged, and the new owner is added to the ownership history rather than replacing what came before. A buyer who taps the chip and signs in can see who currently holds the passport and whether the serial matches the label inside the soundhole. An instrument offered for sale without a matching passport record is not one of ours. The maker will service and repair the guitar for any later owner at cost, whether or not they were the first.
End of life
- Take-back
- The maker will take this instrument back at any age, from any owner
- Repair first
- Almost nothing on this guitar is beyond repair
- Disassembly
- The box can be opened without destroying it
- Material recovery
- Timber and metal separate cleanly
- What cannot be recovered
- The finish and the data carrier
Write to hello@desk34.com rather than send a desk34 guitar to landfill. There is no charge and no obligation to buy anything. Repair comes before everything else: structural joints are made with reversible adhesives and the french polish is spot-repairable, so a damaged instrument is almost always worth restoring rather than replacing. Where an instrument genuinely is at its end, hide glue releases with heat and moisture, the neck is bolted, and the top can be lifted and refitted by a competent luthier. The timbers can be re-worked into smaller instruments or returned to stock, and the frets and machine heads are recoverable metal. The finish and the NFC chip are not recoverable; the chip should be removed from the label and put in electronic waste.