Monday 22nd October '07

The last few weeks spent on the custom perspex guitars has been fun, but other neccessary jobs have been forgotten and need to be addressed before I continue... this is what is bgun today.. after the same old Monday admin of course! 

We start by checking out Jim's progress with this slimline.. the Om symbol of the front has been masked in

as has this supremely cool tribal pattern!  I can't believe how well this fits with the design of the guitar!

At this stage, after laquer, it looks good enough to sell!

But.. the patterns are going to be filled with Chameleon paints and have shadows etc airbrushed in! .. Jim is a genius!!

Repair time... this project bass has been refinished by the customer and needs new Wizard pickups and a set-up etc..

All the hardware is removed

the new humbucker cavity routed to size

and everything re-installed..

you can see on the scratchplate where it needs to be cut out to fit the humbucker

and in the end she is strung up and left to settle into having strings again..

I move on to the NST Guitar.. the soundhole inlays were installed last week, but more needs to be done..

circles of solid padauk are cut out.. carefully as the cross grained areas are very delicate

and then they are marked out around the smaller pseudo-soundholes

and, after recessing a cavity for each blank, they are glued in place..

while waiting for the glue to dry I cut the saddle-piece to size, the chunks cut out between each string promote clarity when chords are played as each string vibrates on it's own with less cross-talk..

Then I re-stone the frets

re-profile them using this tedius but nifty little file

By now the glue has dried and the excess wood removed.. the scalpel blade is being used to carefully profile the edges of the new inlays..

which are then sanded clean and looking good!

Back to the frets..., the fingerboard is masked off

and using wet and dry papers and then various polishes the frets are brought up to this shine.. which means they will be supremely comfortable to play!

She's done for the day.. more repairs and smaller jobs tomorrow.. I also need to be building a perspex bridge for the red guitar soon.. should be fun!

All my best,

Ben