Colour test- Wine red

Kevin made this guitar on our build your own custom guitar course and decided to leave it here with us to spray. It seems Red Wine as a colour is very popular at the moment. Kevin wanted the back done as well, and fake binding, so we masked off the maple cap on the side so it is still the natural colour of the wood.

After the colour was applied a thin sealer coat was sprayed to fix it. The signature and logos were water decals which are also sealed. If Kevin likes the colour then we will continue to gloss the body- the neck will remain matt and natural coloured.

…No rest for the wicked…

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7

On the course everyone works at their own pace, making something totally unique, so it is not unusual to have a few minor snags in the seven days. Just in case we do run over we now plan in extra time for the day after a custom course.

We ask our course participants to keep the morning after the course free, for any tweaking time that may be necessary for niggles that there wasn’t time to fix. It gives them chance to really try out the guitar to make sure everything is OK before they take it away. Some of these guitars go a long way home so it is important to have this time to make sure everything is as it should be. Mostly it is not needed- Nick and Kevin didn’t need it but Dave certainly will.

Dave was up against it from the start with such a high spec design but had always planned on a full gloss for his guitar so was always intending to leave it with us for spraying. At break time Dave got out the Archtop he made here with us last year so I could take some photos. Then it was straight back back to work. As it was just me and him in the workshop progress was very fast. He made short work of drilling holes for the the pick up wires, strap stud and jack socket. The neck joint has now been done and the top is now carved. We won’t worry too much about making him sand it perfectly as we are going to spray it here anyway we can finish that for him.

The last day! (nearly)

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6

Day 7

10am till 8:15pm

Billy did a great job spraying Nick’s guitar yesterday, so that today Nick could finish assembling it and finally start playing it after all this hard work! He started by fitting the nut and saddle then putting on the outside two strings so we could roughly set the action. The rest of the strings were put on and the guitar was tuned for the first time to set the truss rod. At this point we stopped for dinner and Nick played us the theme tune from the Stella Artois advert. He said it played just great as it was, but we still had work to do on the frets and finish the set up. After lunch we strapped the guitar to the string tension simulator so we could level the frets as if the strings were on and tuned to pitch. The frets were re-crowned and polished and Nick also fitted his pick up so all that was left to do was a final set up and test the guitar by plugging it in. There was a minor niggle with one of the connections on his LR Baggs pick up system but that was soon fixed then it was off to the pub to break it in. Nick broke the workshop record for shortest time from finishing a guitar to playing it in front of a live audience..

Kevin also finished with plenty of time to spare but won’t be taking it away with him today, he will leave it here for us to spray, as he decided to go for a gloss finish. His main goal today was to assemble his guitar and do a rough set up to get it playing just to check everything lined up and fitted ok. There were two small adjustments to make: The standard nut was a fraction too low, so when we assemble it for real after spraying we will need to make a custom nut to suit. Also the neck pick up was slightly askew so after disassembling the guitar Kevin adjusted that and all was well. Having finished early Kevin made his cover plate ready for when he comes back to assemble the guitar. He then spent the afternoon working on his design for the headstock logo. We will apply when the guitar is sprayed. We use traditional nitro-cellulose lacquer for our gloss finishes, it is a very time consuming process which cannot be rushed, but the results are by far the best.Kevin will return to assemble his guitar in a few months.

Extra Time!

Dave, although having a fantastic day, is still a way behind due to the complicated nature of his guitar, but his frets are in and the headstock inlay done. This guitar is going to be really stunning, and he has worked really hard all week,  unfortunately the  neck to body join is yet to be done and the top is still uncarved. It is clear he will not get anywhere near finished today, and will need to come back tomorrow for the allotted tinkering time to get his guitar ready for spraying, so I called extra time and we all headed off to the pub to see Nick play his freshly self made acoustic and have a well earned drink!

…Last day tomorrow!…

Day 6

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5

The excitement is mounting now. Six days of hard graft have brought us this far- everyone now has something resembling a guitar and tomorrow we will see and hopefully hear the fruits of our labours.

Nick is hoping to get the strings on and play his guitar in the pub tomorrow so Billy sprayed his guitar yesterday. All he has to do today is make a bridge and glue it on along with the neck so it was an easy day for him. By lunch time he had finished making the bridge and then set about gluing it all together. The tricky bit is scraping off the lacquer under the bridge- We use normal white glue as this can be removed for future repairs or maintenance without too much trouble, so it needs clean bare wood for a good bond.

Dave continued with his fretboard inlays till dinner time. His guitar design is quite elaborate and it is becoming increasingly clear that he may need an extra day to do it justice. We will have to see how far he gets tomorrow, but he did have a very productive afternoon. After lunch he finally started work on the body and by the end of the day is was ready for carving but he still has his headstock inlay to do and the neck needs frets and side dots.

Kevin began this morning by completing his neck joint. First he routed a neck slot then we fitted the neck and checked to make sure it was correctly aligned. After this he started sanding his body and neck. We broke up the fairly tedious process with several other jobs. After rough sanding the front back and sides he machined a radius onto the back- the front will be left sharp for now as he is having fake binding. He decided to go with a wine red bust so Billy stayed late to get the first coat of sealer on and tomorrow he will spray the colour coats.

…Only two more days to go! Can you see what it is yet?

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4

Day 5

10am till 8pm

Yesterday was a well earned day off. We all get tired and I find that’s when people make avoidable mistakes, which can set us back hours. I have often wished I had stopped half an hour earlier, just after I do something stupid. This is why we schedule in a day off in the middle of the custom build course, everyone agreed it was a good idea and we were all raring to get going again today.

Back down to three again as none of the long term builders could get in, so it was a little more sedate than usual until Kevin got the router out!

Kevin put the side dots and the frets by first break, and by dinner time he had made a good start on the body. He routed both pick ups and the control cavity, drilled the control holes and then took a break. After dinner he cut out his body shape – the cap was already cut from yesterday so we could use that as a pattern to copy the shape into the back of the body with a router after first roughly cutting it out with the band saw. He also routed the f-hole and spent some time cleaning up the edges with sandpaper. Things must be going well because he has plumped for a gloss finish- either wine red or deep blue, he is yet to decide. That means, like Dave he will leave it with us for spraying- you will be able to follow this on the blog.

Dave carved his neck before lunch and then started work on his crown inlays…You can’t rush a good job, these are going to be spectacular! He temporarily glued them in place for marking out with a sharp scribe. After carefully removing them a mini router was used to make holes for the inlays fit into. He spent the whole rest of the day working on these and got over half way so he will have to get a move on tomorrow or he may have to come back for another day. Dave is a little behind but as he is having a gloss finish he effectively has an extra day while the others are assembling their guitars so it should be OK. It is just as well because he has more plans for inlays on the headstock!

Nicks inlays have caused a bit of a stir this course- he has his own method of making them which is not the normal procedure so I had warned him that it may not work and when Nick was rubbing them flat after gluing them into his fretboard yesterday he sanded through one of them. It’s a real shame because the rest of them look fantastic, in fact they are worth a post of their own so I will get round to that in a few days and leave it at that, except to say that today an emergency repair job left him with a ‘world’ instead of a ‘sun’ on the first fret. Nick then spent the afternoon putting in his side dots and frets before starting the laborious sanding process. Billy helped out with the final sanding as he will be spraying it for Nick tonight while I write this and we are all meeting later in the pub! It is Acoustic Bliss tonight so Nick better not drink too much as he has to get his neck and bridge glued on tomorrow so he can string it up and play it on Saturday!

…Late finish but still on schedule…

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

Day 4

10am till 9pm

Kevin has to get his fretboard sprayed and Dave and nick must have theirs glued on to have any chance of finishing on time.

Stevie (bass) stepped in to carry on with his 5 string fretless archtop bass. Last time we tried to bend his sides which was a bit of a trial as the wood is so highly figured it started to fracture, so this morning I  showed him how to make a mould. While the glue was drying he returned to carving his back plate which is now starting to look really nice. After dinner he used his new mould to complete the side bending. We used a heat lamp to warm up the dampened sides until they were steaming, then clamped them into the mould to perfect the shape.

Dave (set neck) has been working on his headstock veneer with custom binding. We used a test piece to practice on to make sure we had everything right before cutting the channel around the headstock. The black/white/black strip had to be bent, mitred and glued first, with pins to hold it in place. Afterwards the outside strip of rosewood was glued and held in place by clear tape. This procedure took over half a day and is not for the faint hearted but the results will be spectacular. Dave’s last job today was to glue on his fretboard.

Kevin (bolt on) got his inlays in before first break and also cut his nut slot so his fret board could be sprayed. He then spent the rest of the day working on the body. Kevin spent a while making a pattern for the sound chambers which had to be routed into the body. After that he cut the shape into the cap before it gluing it on last thing.

Nick (acoustic) completed his neck angle and then made and installed a truss rod before cleaning the inlays from yesterday and gluing on his fretboard. Any spare time he had was taken up scraping and sanding the binding on the body that he glued yesterday.

Tomorrow we have a well earned day off…what does a guitar maker do on his day off? Make more guitars of course! I have some custom acoustics to be getting on with but I will be in the workshop on my own, the guys will be back for day 5 on Thursday- see you then….