Tuesday 11th September '07

The current left-hander has had her first stain coats dry in niely and everything is covered with orange,

and black..

then, using fine paper I sand through at strategic points..

and add yellow, orange and a bit of red in various places.. this is all sealed in over several hours with a sanding sealer

Yesterday Charlie Jones' next signature model acrylic bass was rough-routed leaving just a couple of mm around the edge as you can see here

a bearing cutter is used to remove this and to get it to the exact size dictated by the template

the pickup cavity is routed

and we end up with a shaped chunk of acrylic ready for lots of very time consuming carving!

the waste section... I might try and make a seperate neck or something using this.,. we'll see.

the fake binding around the edges of the Helmet guitar are cleaned up with fine paper and a scraper

and everything then covered in many more coats of sealer.. the mahogany I used here has a very slight flame in it.. lovely

after a few more coats the whole guitar is sanded through the grits with wet and dry paper.. wax is then applied, using fine paper and then polished to a lovely matt finish

the frets are then leveled and polished

lemon oil applied and llowed to soak in for a while, bear in mind that this is the third time I've let oil soak in, she should have enough now to keep the fingerboard lovely for ages!

the distressed bridge and tailpiece and the ground wire are installed

as are the Sperzel locking tuners

the bone nut here is angled so that the bass side has more contact with the string than the treble.. it should, theoretically, help the bass sing out a bit more..?..

the nut is shaped, scalloped and polished prior to glueing it in place

strings and ebony truss rod cover installed

and, with the obvious exception of the pickups, which are on there way, we have a guitar..

I have the customers permission and we will be using this as a standard model.. left or right-handed.. although obviously I will only be building a total of 10 of them in my lifetime.. this is the best way to keep things exclusive and interesting

and I've just had news that Dennis Tirch's new album, recorded in the UK just after he pickup up his Crimson Guitar, is nearly ready for release.. check him out!  This is the perfect blend of prog rock and .. well, every influence you can imagine!

All my best,

Ben