I'm pretty excited about the Randy Lucas Jumbo we've gotten in. It's a top notch instrument in every respect. I'm hard to please, but this is one guitar I just smile at.

The brazilian is dry, old stock which is very dark with central spidering doing out to rift toward the edges. The Adirondack is very evenly coloured with focal areas of bearclawing, going from tight to wide grain towards the edges.

The neck is made from a laminate of 2 pieces of mahogany with a ebony centre strip. Brazilian rosewood adorns the front and the back of the headstock and the entire body, neck and headstock is bound in ivoroid with wood purfling.

I haven't seen such exact craftsmanship with ivoroid bindings and wood purfling. The lines are very clean with almost no bleeding, and the colour of the binding and purfling is totally uniform throughout. That's a very tall order, especially working with the 2 differing materials. The abalone strips are well matched and the joinery work is very fine.

Everything is just so on this guitar. The spalting on the brazilian backplate matches and joins the ebony neck strip. The headstock design is remniscent of the haircut styled vintage headstocks, and is nicely appointed with the ivoroid binding/wood purfling scheme.

The sound is fantastic, with responsiveness and balance predominating the proceedings. The great headroom makes flatpicking a wonderful possibility and the metallic overtones compliments the rounded fundamentals.

Fingerpicking is comfortable on the 1 3/4" and I am very pleased how powerful the guitar is. Definitely in the vintage camp with regards to feel and sound.

Of course, the wedge body is always going to a feature here and it certain makes playing all 16" of this instrument a breeze. The fretwork is spectacular and I have to take my hat off to Randy for creating such a playable, great sounding guitar.