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Thursday the 8th April 2010

we left off the last diary page with this pic of the eight string piezo loaded bridge.. and it’s still pretty!!

On to the rest of the hardware.. I take all the bolts out of the knurled knobs to start preparing them for their acid bath…

I sand down the new trem.. Anodising tomorrow… G’nite..

This Elm top RF slim is one of the first oil finishes we did with wax on the top and it looks a bit flat a year on..

In the meantime I have some machining to do on the baby milling machine..

The height adjustment bar for the new tremolo is now ready for polishing..

And we have a polished and buffed custom left-handed tremolo ready for anodising!

Ok, the knurled knobs and trem are all dumped in the anodising solution and we’re away..

move on to the twins again, some small jobs to be done to get them ready for carving…

Firstly the excess headstock veneer is rasped away.. Wenge in this case..

While we have some sunshine my next job is to take a load of photo’s of the green 45rpm before she is shipped..

The control positions are drilled in the twins.. I love this rosewood top!!

Both done, you can see the shielded wiring channel through the pickup cavities!

The igor in his lair checking the green beastie over one last time!

And I rout away the excess top wood from the twins.. Wenge makes dustier dust than rosewood..

The twins are ready for carving.. A process that will be done in public next weekend at the Yandles show!!

The hardware is removed from the anodising tank and suspended in boiling water to seal it..

The hardware is brought out of the boiling water and the erb’s tuning block is put together.. Very pretty piece of tunage!

The new ball bearing tremolo is buffed up for the last time..

And the tremolo is also together.. The new bearing system works perfectly! Have a great easter all!

We finally start to get ready for putting hardware on Steiner’s extended range bass..

In the meantime the igor practices his routing.. I love the ‘this is a bloody dangerous tool!’ speech!! it isn’t really but he didn’t know that!!

The erb’s fretboard has loads of accumulated gunk from the oil finishing process that is now scraped away

The fretboard is masked off next so the fret’s can be worked on a bit..

The fret’s are filed back.. When there’s no more marker on the top they are flat.. Easy..

Re-marked up and then a straight file with rounded over edges is used to profile each fret…

The frets are the guitars user interface.. and as such are of prime importance to playability! They’re polished to a shine with this small rotary tool..

Finally the fretboard has to be re-hydrated with lemon oil.. Repeatedly for the rest of the afternoon..

The igor meanwhile spends his afternoon making some new brass saddles for our custom tunematic style bridge..

the roughed out the saddles for the new tunematic and they’re looking nice and solid..

Before packing her off I test the black 45rpm for the last time.. Very nice guitar! Of course…

We’re demonstrating at the Yandles show over the next two days.. though we’ll still be twitpiccing as we work.. see you there!

All my best,
Ben

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