Yes, it has strings, it plays, it sounds, it weighs 1800 grams… Here’s a sneak preview – I will post more photos in the near future. and, it’s got the new batch of hardware! In other words, feel free to...
Learn MoreI was travelling all last week, so I have spent a hectic the weekend getting ready for final assembly. I received the new hardware on Friday so am now only missing the glide bearings that sit at the rear of the tuners. In terms of finishing, the original idea was to leave all wood their respective natural colors, since this is the way I prefer it. But, I have ended up with the back of the guitar stained “ebony black”. The thought was that this would go together with the color that I put on my first ever build, the Rockette. The deep orange would have looked good with the black back. The issue is that I don’t remember how I achieved this finish… A violin builder, Tommy Jakobsson, taught me some of the basics of lutherie back in the day and I’m pretty sure he tipped me off on this finish. Since I am on a deadline and Tommy has not returned either phone calls or e-mails, I had to abandon it. I have a very strong memory of the finish being a two-step process involving chemicals rather than stains. It reacted with the wood itself and became an incredibly vivid orange when oiled. Does anybody know what...
Learn MoreToday, drilled the fastening holes for the neck and could for the first time test out the balance of the instrument. It was a nervous moment the first time I put it in my lap, since the body is so incredibly light and the hardware and pickups add very little weight. The neck on the other hand, being made out of wenge and ebony, felt like a rock in comparison. However, I needed not to have worried. I’m happy to report that it balances perfectly and exactly according to plan. I started with an alignment test setup that was left sitting all the while I was drilling the holes. Then, the three main positions were tested: Look ma, no hands! Lastly, note the angle of my index finger and how it follows the angle of the frets. The guitar obviously doesn’t balance itself in this position, but it is very comfortable nonetheless. I can feel that the comparatively heavy neck and the trapezoidal neck profile (contact Rick Toone for more information on this neck profile) seems to address the “headless wiggle” problem. I can’t wait to string it up, but the mounting plate for the string locks is off for finishing along with the rest of the new...
Learn MoreToday, I have worked on the neck, finishing off the head end of it and mounting side dot markers (abalone). I also routed the pickup holes and this is where things started going wrong. My idea was to have the pickups extending out of the top of the guitar as if the top itself was a pick-guard. The mounting screws would actually come in from the rear of the guitar to be invisible. I routed enough clearance (I thought) inside the body to allow the pickups to be slid in under the top and then be mounted in this way. But, it didn’t work out at all. I don’t want to carve out anything more from the rear, so instead I had to cut openings for the mounting pieces of the pickups. (Although as I’m writing this, I realize that I could have cut these pieces off altogether and replaced them with something else underneath the pickup! Ah, well – next build…) Note that the bridge is missing parts so looks a little un-proportional. I also realized that there is not a lot of space to mount the controls. This guitar will have a single volume and a 6-way rotary pickup selector. My initial impression was that the pickup...
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