gluing in a set neck and first fun with letter-cutting
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Welcome to the first workshop diary from Crimson Guitars in way too long! I apologise, but there are a few good (enough) reasons for my distraction.. watch the video below to get the full low-down in person!
so.. everything is changing and in the short term I’m going to be spending a little more time than I would like in meetings and looking at potential workshops but the end result will be a much more streamlined production at Crimson Guitars.. finally :)
A few veneers and some copper is glued inside the control cavity wall of the Claro walnut guitar.
The jack and MIDI outputs are mounted directly into the wood of the cavity, hence the strengthening, but the end result will look very much better than having nuts hanging out over the edge..
Now after more than a decade of building bespoke guitars you wouldn’t think… Continue reading
let the Claro Walnut dust fly.. and we have some new guitar building tools
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Welcome to the Crimson Guitars luthiery blog, here you will be able to watch each and every process that goes into making a custom guitar and we are now also developing our own comprehensive range of guitar builders tools and jigs, for far too long we in the UK have had to rely on improvising or importing our specialist luthiery tools and that is now coming to an end.
This weeks new addition to our range of fretwork tools is this traditional triangular fret crowning file, a top quality file that is precision ground with safe edges so that you do not damage your fret-board as you profile your frets. These are now available to buy here in our store.
Now, the custom guitar that is currently on my bench (and has been for far too long since we’re also filming the entire build!) is the Claro… Continue reading
a brass inlay, add some ebony and you’re golden
Welcome to the Crimson Guitars workshop blog where you can watch every boutique guitar that we build from start to finish.
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We create our custom guitars one at a time and our current build is this stunning Claro Walnut Robert Fripp signature
The client has asked for something that requires more than a little mathematics.. not my strongest suit as many of you will know (numerical dyslexia can be a real bitch!) Anyhow, the do say that every boy should have a piece of string in his pocket and it comes in handy when I measure the circumference of the body.
I want 22 dots evenly spaced around each side of the guitar with the strap buttons being the centre points.
They will end up looking similar to the side dot inlays on the neck, although with ebony centres.
I have a plan for our range of… Continue reading
fret levelling files, some inlay and some sawdust
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Welcome to the Crimson Guitars luthiery blog, a few new guitar building tools are finally ready for sale and the current custom guitar we’re building is starting to come together with the headstock logo inlay in place and looking all 3d.
The first batch of fret and fretboard levelling files were finished in raw shellac.. but we are getting a much better feel with a coat of Renaissance Wax on top of the lacquer.
Speaking of shellac, this Dissident guitar with the rosewood top has the same finish and is nearly ready for sale.. it just needs cleaning up and photo’s taking.
A new ebony head stock veneer is cut roughly to the shape of our 3 aside headstock with the straight string pull.
The truss rod cover is marked out
and cut from the ebony using a jewellers saw to get the tightest fit
