This site describes in part the construction of my (Don Pendergraft's) custom guitar by my father, Olen Pendergraft. It's basically a copy of a pre-war Martin dreadnaught with some slight variations for personal taste. My dad has built classicals in the past. This is his first attempt at a steel stringed dread. I think that he is doing a great job!

Update: It's now April of 2010. He's now made many bluegrass guitars and is really making a name for himself in bluegrass circles.

This guitar is a one of the kind. My dad is building it, and I designed the label and also the peghead decal. Here are a few ways in which we departed from the LMI kit: The gold Schaller tuners have had their buttons replaced with ebony ones. Instead of using the rosewood veneer for the peghead, we are using ebony. The fingerboard and peghead will be bound with ivoroid. Instead of 2mm MOP dots on the fingerboard, we are using abalone diamonds. Instead of the backstrip that came with the kit, we are using the D28 kind. Also, we have replaced the purfling with a herringbone design to match the rosette. The kit came with a rosewood bridge plate. We have decided it best to use a maple bridge plate instead. We have also chosen to stain the guitar with vintage toner before finishing it. My father is great at French polishing from his experiance with classical guitars, so I'm happy to say that I'm going to have a French polished Dread. I wonder if it will be the only one in existance? :) Lastly, instead of the pepperoni pickguard, I have opted to use John Greven's wonderful Tor-Tis light colored pickguard. It's almost dalmation spotted looking. You can see this on many high end vintage guitars.