Wednesday 4th April '07
22 days to the London Guitar Show - stand 244
The last instrument to be completed before the show... maybe.. will be this bass, I've realised that I'm seriously running out of time! She needs fine sanding through all the grits..
as well as final shaping of the edges etc..
Half of the guitars going to the show will have an oil finish and this has to be added several times a day
to lots of guitars!
the bass... before..
and after the first coat, this was absorbed almost immediately but will build up over the next few weeks!
On to the next stage! This is the 'Camo' Descendant.. the first job is to clean up the fingerboard and frets where oil has made it unwanted mark..
and, after checking for any major irregularities in the finish, we move on to adding the hardware. This set of pickups is called 'Toil and Trouble' by Wizard Pickups guru and they were designed specifically for Crimson Guitars...
Everything on, and double-checked...
including the Gotoh locking tuners and the mesh truss-rod cover.. she is then strung up and ready for electrickery..
I start on Dom's pinstripe X-Symbol.. the high-build oil finish has to be gently sanded flat with various grits of wet and dry paper..
until you get this lovely sheen
the fingerboard is cleaned and oiled and buffed on the grinder
and then hardware is added. I use a modified punch (with hammer) to install the string ferrules..
and for this guitar I'm making the nut out of a block of ebony.. ths will help achieve the tone we require..
it is carefully shaped and then sanded etc
another Wizard pickup.. this time a PAF!!! Oh yeah!
and a completeish guitar... I'm going to put five or six together and then do a run on electronics and then start over again..
Question of the Day
From a guitar set-up point of view, whats the secret behind a
getting great harmonics? Are there any set-up tricks to make
harmonics jump out of a guitar?
Unfortunately not really, it mainly depends on how the guitar was built, One of my Stigmata models had amazing harmonic response on a certain set of notes but the next one just didn't. The set up was the same but I had changed the thickness of the body by about 15mm ... Having said that there is always the buzz feiton system, this puts a guitar in tune all over the guitar and will have some effect on the harmonic response.. Crimson Guitars is a liscenced Buzz Feiton retro-fitter! Other than that I would just say get to know your guitar and ind it's sweet spots.. and double-check that your intonation is correct to start with.
Have fun,
Ben | 
