    
 
Monday 15th October '07
The week begins, as ever, with a flurry of emails and phone calls but these die down as the day progresses and some work is completed..
Steve's (Siouxie Sous et al) guitar recieves the attention of the random orbital sander and ends up looking as I want her to..
while Jasper gets dusty.. this is his expression when he wants somewhere comfortable to sleep..
the whole front is gone over through the grits with wet and dry paper... a long process
and various hard to reach places are scraped clean using various very sharp implements
I end up with quite a nice sheen.. though this is just a preliminary polish to see if the back carving matches the front from an aesthetic point of view
then she is polished... and we move to the back
after watching the sheep and magpies converse through the new window! .. which, by the way, has drastically improved the light at my bench and therefore helped speed up the polishing process on these guitars. Natural light is essential if you want to see the small imperfections created by using wet and dry paper.. and if you can't see them you prpobably won't get rid of them!
the back is scraped and rough sanded
and Rolly comes to visit... the two cats were named 'Rock' and 'Roll' originally but my wonderfull wife decided Rocky and Rolly sounded better... who am I to argue?
the same process is repeated... at length!!
and in the end I have this... unfortunately the pics don't really show it off to the best advantage but here are several so you can get an idea!
the edges are then scraped clean ready for polishing too.. I also need to do the neck, headstock and create the back plates
this shot gives an idea of what she'll look like in the end!
Showcase today is this Viola.. this instrument represents the biggest single loss of money and time I have ever incurred on a build.. but was worth it! the sides are a laminate of solid maple and ebony, the top spruce and the body and neck figured maple with aluminium struts creating stability and aesthetic loveliness. She has two pickups, a custom humbucker and a piezo system and is run through an outboard preamp system.. this is just to how what is possible!
All the best,
Ben
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