Wilson Burnham Guitars

In a previous post I mentioned that I was going to cut a sound port in the upper bout of the cedar/wenge guitar. Drilling/cutting sound ports in guitars has been popular for about the last fifteen years, it was original done with the claim that it made the guitar louder, but research has shown that it really doesn't make the guitar louder. It does give more immediate feed back of the guitar's sound to the player. I found oval templates after a search on the Internet and settled on this size. A little spray adhesive helped attach the template to the guitar's upper bout...
I bravely went at the wood with a drill bit in my cordless drill...
and there is the roughed-in oval. Some exterior tear/blow out had to be dealt with.
After filing and sanding away the excess that didn't look like an oval, an oval appear. This hole immediately raised the tap tone of the top by one whole tone, from about F sharp-G to A flat-A, and it also reduced the side's stiffness, I can feel t…