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Rock Radio’s Bailey Acoustic – Signed by the stars!
Thanks to everyone who has played and signed it!
We went over to Rock Radio today to return Billy Rankin’s 12 string Washburn acoustic. It had been knocked over and suffered a bad break – the headstock had completely come off. I glued it back on, put on a new headstock veneer, re-bound it, put a new logo on, and refinished it. I was quite proud how it came out, and Billy was chuffed to get it back in one piece!
While we were there I had a look at their Bailey acoustic. We left the guitar with them a while back in the hope that it would get played by some of their rock star visitors, and it has. And they’ve signed it as well! How cool is that?
Billy told us that Donald MacLeod was playing it when the string broke, and then the bridge pin had got lost.
By the state of it, it looks like it’s had a bit of a hammering too, so I decided to take it to the workshop for an overhaul.
Let me know if you recognise any of the signatures! [email_link]
My Dads Guitar
…Dale credits us as the inspiration behind his book!
Coming Soon….
Dale came on our course when we were back in Coventry. In fact he is in our film ‘Guitar Magic’ building the very guitar which inspired the book! At the time he was a manager for a well know soft drinks company. Look at him now…..
Check his website for release dates…and we’ll keep ya posted!
BIG THANKS and hope it goes well Dale!
Stephen’s Guitar-Red Wine Burst-cellulose gloss
…Stephen built this guitar on our BYOG course…. he wanted a stain and full gloss so he left it with us to spray.
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- Sanded with 320 grit
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- Masking front neck and headstock
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- Waiting for sealer to dry
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- Stain applied with soft cloth
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- Stain sanded with 400 grit
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- Stain wiped on not sanded
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- Dark cherry red stain is applied not sanded
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- The colour is sealed in
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- Colour is masked to prevent overspray
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- Masking done ready to spray colour
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- Before the dark red
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- After the dark red is sprayed
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- Sanded with 800 grit
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- Burst sprayed and sealed in
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- Sanded with 800 grit then glossed
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- Time for lacquer to fully cure before polishing
How to design your own guitar by Mark Bailey
When a body is made by joining a cap onto a base wood and the cap is painted, the edge of the cap can be used to give the appearance of the guitar being bound, usually called fake or faux binding:
Steve wanted a dark red colour “think red wine” with the flame pattern in the wood to stand out, finished with a dark burst, and the back sides and neck were to be painted dark red.
After a final sanding with 320 grit it’s ready to prepare for painting. I masked the front of headstock, fingerboard and top face of the guitar. The top face will have the stain wiped on with a cloth directly onto the wood, and the rest will be sprayed with sealer, before spraying the colour.
The back sides and neck are then sprayed with sealer.
When dry the masking is removed from the front then a black stain is applied to the bare wood. When dry it is lightly sanded off. The black stain sticks in the ‘figure’ of the wood and comes off in between. It’s then given a coat of cherry red. This is called double staining.
It’s then sprayed with a coat of sealer.
Once dry, the top and bindings are masked. The edge of the binding on the sides is masked using fine line tape which leaves a perfect line when removed. The rest of the guitar (back and sides) is then sprayed with dark cherry red. The masking is removed and it is left to dry.
Next the sides, back, and neck, are masked in order to spray the burst. The sides are masked up to the still sharp edge between the sides and top, and the burst is then sprayed. When dry the masking is removed, and the sharp edge is then rounded off with 320 grit to finish the ‘fake’ wooden binding effect.
The whole guitar is then given two coats of sealer.
When dry the guitar is flattened with 800 grit, being careful not to rub through to the colour. It’s now ready for the gloss coats.
It’s given six coats of gloss, light sanding between coats. Now it will hang for a few weeks to fully harden before polishing.
Alone in the Workshop – Part 17 – Ziricote guitar finished!
…On schedule – just in time for Rich’s birthday!
You may remember some time ago I started making four guitars – well I finally finished one of them today – bang on schedule. I have been concentrating on this one because of the obvious deadline….We are off to deliver it tomorrow….
The Ziricote that Rich chose for his guitar looks and sounds really stunning….I’ll have to get some more now!
If you are interested in me building a guitar for you: contact us
Alone in the Workshop – Part 16 – Gluing the neck and bridge on
….The ziricote guitar has been sprayed and polished…
The guitar has to be finished tomorrow as we are setting off on Friday to deliver it for Rich’s birthday. It has been left as long as possible for the laquer to cure before buffing.
The neck and bridge were glued on as usual – no problems there. Now it will sit over night to dry off before it is strung and set up. Can’t wait to hear it!!!!
Ovation Repair Job – Devastation to Salvation
….This guitar was not in a good way when it came in….
It’s nice to get something where you can make a big difference and really get your teeth into. This guitar was a long time old friend of a customer of mine. You know how you get attached to these things………
The first thing I had to do was work out if the thing could be made playable again.
There was quite a lot of damage on the headstock but I’m not going to worry about that – It did need a new tuning button though – easy enough….
There was serious wear on the frets – some of them looked like the strings had been beaten into them with a shoe. I would normally have just ripped them out and put new ones in, but I was a bit unsure about the aluminium fretboard. So, I did some research and apparently, on these guitars the frets were never made to be replaced when worn. It can be done, but this entails filing the old frets right off and milling out the slots- masses of work (avoid). Ovations idea was to just unbolt the neck and put a new one on but that never really came to pass…… All I could hope was that the damage could be dressed out of the frets. This being the deciding factor I decided to do that first.
But, while setting up the jig for levelling the frets I noticed that the top was a bit springy(?!). Looking closer I could see that some of the braces had come away from the inside of the soundboard. This was easily fixed with PVA (white) wood glue and clamps. I take a good few minutes over this, applying the glue with a small brush while flexing the top, so that the glue penetrates fully into the gaps. Any excess glue in cleaned off with a damp rag before the clamps are applied. In places where clamps are difficult or don’t reach I use magnets. These are left over from when we built the wind turbine. Remind me to do a post on magnets someday….Love ’em! There were three loose braces that got fixed this way, one at a time, leaving enough time in between for the glue to dry. Then I left the guitar a few days for the glue to fully dry off.
After it had a rest, I gave it a fret dress. Using the string tension simulator I was able to get out most of the damage in the frets which was surprising considering how bad it was. Hopefully this should give the guitar good few more years enjoyment for the owner anyway.
Now I was pretty sure it was gonna be alright, but the fretboard was still in a mess. I replaced the fret position markers with MOP including the (2!) remaining plastic dots.
My idea was just to remove the knackered paint and clean up the fret board, but when i did a tiny test to see what it looked like under the paint, it wasn’t good. The only solution was to leave it, or respray the fretboard.
We had enough black paint kicking about to do it, so in the back it went with Billy and came back looking brand new! We had a long dicussion about whether to mask off the frets and dots, but decided in the end it would be easier to just paint the whole board, then scrape the black finish off the MOP and the frets. This worked a treat..Again the guitar was left for several days for the paint to fully cure.
The rosette was 90per cent missing – what was left was just a mess of plastic. Ovation replacements were unobtainable, so I decided it needed a simple wooden rosette to cover it all up. I chose a nice piece of rosewood for this and layered it for strength with a black veneer underneath. Billy volunteered to finish it off and sprayed it with matt laquer.
While fixing the new rosette I noticed another loose brace and fixed that – I hope its not a sign that they are all about to drop off but at least the ones we fixed will stay put. If any more come off we’ll just have to glue them back on again.
So now the guitar is finished – a new lease of life for an old friend, and a happy customer – I hope………..I’m off to deliver it tonight at the Burrowfields! See you there…
Bailey World – Update
Just to let you know what’s goin on at Bailey world:
We are back from a great time on Gigha where I managed to write off the car, but thats another story.
Before we left, Duncan and Colin came to stock up on materials. Duncan is currently building an acoustic guitar on the course and has been many times before to make electrics. They are now starting to make guitars in his garage. Go for it chaps – good luck.
The competition to ‘Name a Bailey’ finished yesterday…We had loads of really great suggestions…Give us a few days to decide which ones (if any) we’ll use and I’ll post the results here. I’ll leave the comments open in case anyone has a belated epiphany. Hmm that’s a good one!
Meanwhile…….
I spent the last two days categorising everything in the workshop! We’ve been working really hard on getting all the info together for the new website. It is behind schedule but it is looking awesome. Not long now! Watch this space…..
I have also been doing a few repairs this week including an old Ovation with an aluminium fretboard which was in a bad way – I will do a post on this tomorrow.
Name a Bailey Guitar! And win a valuable prize….
….Sign Up and make a comment to suggest a name for these guitars:
Have a look at the pictures for inspiration and please keep it clean (Duffy and Kenny). You must sign in to the Bailey Blog to enter. Comments on Facebook will not be counted.
I will decide if I like any of them in about a week and if we choose your suggested name you’ll be contacted via email and we’ll send you a gift pack from us to say thanks (If you want).
The pack will contain:
Bailey T-shirt, Set of strings, Guitar Magic DVD, Bailey Plectrum……and whatever else we can find lying around. Of course you will also get credited on the Bailey Blog and receive massive kudos
Make sure you tell me which guitar you are talking about…..you can make as many suggestions as you want.
Example:
A1 – The Asbo
B1 – The Beast
Now you can see why I need a little help……competition closes 10 Aug 2010
Update 11 Aug 2010
Hi folks…. Cheers for all your fantastic suggestions. I am currently feeding them through the master computer (Carol). I’ll let you all know in a few days if we choose any of ’em.
…I will leave the comments open in case you have any belated epiphanies.
Update 15 Aug 2010
There have been some great entries…nice work folks……I reckon we are half way there! So I have decided to leave the comments open until our new internet shop is ready to launch. Keep the names coming……won’t be long….