Glued up from bookmatched spruce, with a simple soundhole binding. I wanted to echo the jazz guitar D-shaped soundhole.

Piezo pickups and modified ladder bracing.

The back and sides in the gluing frame. Richard had to make the frame specifically for this project.

It's starting to take shape!

The raw neck blanks fitted into dovetail joints.

The necks and headstocks start taking shape.

We decided to put a cutout in the center, between the necks.

Fake tortoise-shell binding with additional layers to add subtle stripes and set off the tortoise-shell effect.

I'm liking the birds-eye maple back a lot.

The cutout is just a little asymmetric to handle the different neck widths and dovetail joints.

Let's see what it looks like with most of the hardware. This is where we had to come up with a pattern for the ends of the fingerboards. You can see one penciled idea. In the end, we reflected the curves in the tailpieces.

These are the sort of art-deco tailpieces I found. I don't recall the manufacturer. The jack for the pickups is in the strap button.

Frets, dots and all. Notice the detail in the headstock. A dark layer laminated in creates a sort of pinstripe effect. Totally cool.

The back of the headstocks and neck. Notice the tiny dots on the side of the fretboard. Subtle cues for playing in various hand positions. A nice detail.

There's even a pinstripe seam down the necks. The tuners were modified to work in this situation. I didn't want the traditional side-facing tuners interfering in the tight quarters between the two necks. Using slot heads like a classical guitar made the headstock profile narrower.

The fingerboard ends have a gentle curve that echoes the curve in the tailpiece. The inlay dots are subtle and pleasant to see.

Can you see the light and dark stripes in the binding?

When building the instrument, it's a good idea to string it up and make sure the structure is OK. This is usually first done before finish is applied (while it is "in the white"). If the structure is not sound, now is the time to fix it. This is the first time to hear what the instrument will sound like.

This is the instrument with the raw stain, still masked. The sealer and finish are next.

I wanted the stain to suggest age. Notice the "wear" on the necks. The birds-eye is starting to pop with the stain on.

The binding is all masked and hidden right now.

The finish has been sprayed and most of the masking removed. Next steps include lots of cleanup, sanding and curing time.

The finish really makes the birds-eye stand out. And this is before the sanding and polishing! It's going to be lovely.