Monday 15th January 07
23.27
Well, after another weekend spent rewiring the workshop I couldn't wait to return to actualy building some guitars! In truth I spent Sunday reorganising HQ after the wiring was completed late on Saturday.. we finally have enough power to run things properly! Yay!! We've only been in this premesis for a few months now, but it is amazing how much crap gets acumulated in funny little corners.. much like someones desk at work, I've just got more space to fill!
We've got pics today ranging from a few of Roberts guitars that were re-vibrated on Thursday at DGM HQ to lots of the main building work on three set-neck guitars.. even a little staining thrown in to sweeten the pie.. Oh, talking about pie.. I made the best Pizza bases ever today.. flour, water, honey, salt.. then mix in a tin of crushed chickpeas (I used the garlic crusher!) Basically it's Morrocan Flatbread.. but it tastes soooo good... Anyway.. guitars.... ... .. .
Here we have two pics left over from my visit to Robert at DGM HQ, these were worked on at my workshop last month but the temperature/humidity conspired to change the relief angle of the necks which needed the smallest of tweaks to render a suitable action.. around 1.5mm!
The guitars are his 70's Les Paul.. (cutting into this guitar to add the Kahler trem and more electrickery nearly broke my heart!!) and one of the Fernandes guitars.. not bad.. but not that good either..
Here's what a neck blank looks like after the fretboard etc has been added but the back not shaped, I'm cutting away excess timber to make the carving easier..
The holes being drilled for Sperzel locking tuners.. they're the best you can get!
Prepping up for the shaping process... which is a trade secret!...
And shaped.. ready for fine sanding before being set into the body.
The body... this is what's left of a 12 foot plank of mahogany, ready to be glued and clamped
Glued ... and clamped.. I use a type of glue that dries in around 45 mins (depending on humidity/temperature) the worst part of my character is impatience.. this makes it much easier..
Flattening down the body blank before routing for the neck..
prepping a moveable templete (ok.. two planks of wood!) for the neck pocket route
I've jumped a stage here.. neck glued in on the Descendant model..
Ahh... empty neck pocket on a slimline RF model.. this only extends this far as it's going to have a trem.. no need for it to be as long as I normally make my deep-set neck tenons..
I cut the blank out to within a mm of the edge of where the body should end to make the routing easier
Jumped another stage here.. we've routed round the shape of the body using a template and a bearing cutter.. in this picture you see the bookmatched top waiting to have the neck joint cut into it..
cutout marked out..
And the whole shebang glued on... I only did this to three guitars today.. and I ran out of clamps!!!
the headstock has glue on and is ready for the veneer..
I've used a clamping block of MDF with a piece of Jesso (white bubbly stuff) which compresses and makes sure the veneer is even..
three guitars on my floor.. all have tops clamped on as well as headstock veneers.. wait an hour or two and they'll be ready for routing/carving etc... in fact, wait till tomorrow.. at this stage in my day I recieve a visit from the proprietor of Ace Acoustics.. a local guitar shop who had a minor repair for me to perform.. repaired, smoked, chatted about guitars.. had tea.. had more tea.. went back to work...
Here we have a PAF (Patent Applied For) guitar ... named while PRS was being sued by a behemoth of a guitar company... this is part way through the staining process...
And this is it complete.. it'll be much brighter when the laquer is on.. a sort of tigers-eye type colour.. it should prove to be a lovely guitar when complete!
I must bid you a good night... it's now 00.08 and I'm knackered!!
VB,
B
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