Tuesday 16th October '07

To start the day you have to check out this video that 05Ric has just put up.. it features both his drumming and his bespoke Crimson Guitars Extended Range Bass... the mans a genius... oh and his new album with Gavin Harrison is out too!

 the front of Charlie's 2nd bass is rough sanded

 and ready for scraping.  As I sand it small patches of acrylic heat up and these need at be scraped off

 the fingerboard is marked and triangular fret markers cut into the edge.. you'll see them from both the front and the back of the 'board

 and finally we come to the drudgery of sanding by hand through the grits.. this custom bass guitar is being built from a piece of acrylic that was bought at the same time as the first prototype and therefore has been curing for a lot longer than the red acrylic, the problem is that it is now twice as hard as the other and it takes twice as long to work... but it will be worth it in the end.

 Bud in his chair... he does look a bit like a boss type person? No?

In the end we've gone through the grits and a preliminary polish.. 

 you can clearly see the carving markes in the back now

 at this point my scrapers need a new burr to enable me to actually do this next job..

 the back is rough carved already

 and takes an hour or two to bring to an acceptable finish.. a job which takes maybe half an hour with a timber instrument!

 and then the whole thing is scraped clean to take out the random orbital sanders marks and scratches..

the joy of working with scrapers is that as you go along they heat up through the friction and gradually burn your fingers.. it's like the frog in a slowly heated bucket of water.. by the time you realise whats happening it's too late and you're in pain! 

 But she is now ready for polishing etc... at least the body is.  Over the next few days I will have to make the bridge and various bits and pieces.. but I think we can now call both actylic beasties 'almost-guitars'!

All my best,

Ben