Tuesday 2nd Jan '07
18.57
It's very good to be back.. holidays over, and up to my neck in work.. can't complain... look at the 'to do' list on my wall.. and that's just guitars to build.. got till the London Guitar Show to finish all of this!!!!
If you're on the board, don't be annoyed at your place on it, no particular order!!!
Spent most of today performing administrative loop-de-loops.. not really my cup of tea, then fretted a few necks. (let me tell you, stainless steel frets are a nightmare, really good when they're being used but not fun to install!)
It seems to have been a day of small jobs, fix some bracing in an accoustic, several inlay jobs.. here's one from start to finish.. gotta love the digi camera!
a sheet of abalone shells pressed together and gluedto make it stronger.. here's the Crimson 'squiggle' having been cut out with a very fine saw.
here the logo and ornate 'R' are placed on double-sided tape on the headstock so that I can cut around them onto the timber for an accurate cavity
here the 'R' cavity has been prepared and you can see the marking for the 'squiggle'
you can see the glue here on both inlays, it's mixed in with pigment (or, in this case, rosewood dust) to fill any gaps and match them ino the headstock .. the next step is filing the glue down and carefully sanding the inlay flat.. bear in mind the material only starts out at about 3/4 of a millimeter!
here the deed is done, inlays in and looking good.. in this case several coats of oil are all that is needed as this is a natural guitar...
this is an old inlay on the 'Cygnus' model built for Graham Solley, the most intricate inlay I've done yet, and very very time consuming.. but hey, where else can you spend weeks realizing a picture of two scorpions in a mating dance..fight...dance,...?
| 
