Tuesday 30th January 2007
21.21
It has been a very smelly weekend.. I'm building a perspex 4-string bass for Goldfrapp's bassist Charlie Jones, and carving the stuff sends forth many intoxicating fumes... not good when you're using tools with fast spinny bits..(that's a technical term) anyway, there will be no pics of this guitar during the build due to the nature of the processes.. I'm doing things in a way not tried before and the last time this was done on one of Charlie's basses it was copied and mass produced within weeks... still, completed pics will be forthcoming in the next few weeks.
This is Tony's LP type after sucking up many coats of oil finish, I'm now using varying grits of wet/dry paper to bring up a beautiful matt finish.. I'll be stringin' her up tomorow morning.. before too much dust enters the atmophere!
speaking of dust.. this pile is the result of the weekends work on the perspex bass... two and a half black bags full!!
This is the 2nd prototype Crafty acoustic model.. the first had a back which was bent through 2 curves.. the tension this created twisted the front somewhat.. which was expected, but not welcomed! .. this time I'm carving the back like I would a jazz guitar or a violin.. here I route round the templete to get the desired shape..
And here she is after carving and rough sanding..
profile.. should be comfortable for those crafties used to playing Ovation guitars.. and it'll definitly sound better.. honest..
building up the heel of the neck for the PAF DC, I could have used rosewood to match the neck timber but decided that the contrast would look good.. there's something to be said for unfettered creative urges.. then again, there's something to be said for having a boss to tell you what to do.. ie, no responsibilty for bad design choices.... .. we'll see..
routing the neck pocket out. This neck slips in under the neck pickup..
final fitting before glue..
after depth marking the acoustic back I use a gouge to rough carve out the waste..
and then a violin-makers plane to fine-carve it to shape.. very hard on the thumb useing a tool this small for an hour!
after fine sanding here she is.. very, very, very light and acoustically responsive.. next move sides and top..
PAF DC with neck glued in and ready for the back to be carved..
control cavity roughed out and ready to route.. you can also see the rough marking out for the shaping to be performed on the back.
cavity routed...
and back carved and rough sanded, .. this diary makes it seem that this takes no time at all... I sweat and slave for hours upon hours... (mmm, wage justified...)
Jesting aside modern tools do make my job a lot easier, everything is still handmade by just me but I do use routers, bandsaws etc etc whenever they can make the job easier.. which just makes sense really..
This is Roll, the second of our two cats.. and you guessed it, the black one is called rock... of course! He's sleeping next to the laptop now and I couldn't resist snapping a pic.. too cute!
tomorrow will be taken up by completing the LP type for Tony and fine sanding and carving various show guitars.. I'll even try and get the first coat of finish on the PAF DC... we'll see, all this depends on how much admin work I get roped in to doing... the bane of my existence.. buy more guitars so I can employ a full time worrier-about inane tax problems and organiser of the unorganisable morass of junk that is my office!!!! (Jibber jibber wibble... AAAAAARRRGGGHH) ..(panic attack over.. sorry...,)
till tomorow,
Ben
crimson guitars - redefining custom | 
