080610

Tuesday the 8th of June 2010

the igor is quietly beavering away on the vanquish hollow, as ever it is of prime importance that the fretboard is well saturated in lemon oil

the beaudeaux has had all the cracks from an unexpected meeting with the floor repaired.. we hope.. she just needs strings and tension to see how she copes under the strain..

now, the frets are massive, and I really mean huge.. I remove about a millimeter of waste before it looks like we may get an acceptable action!

ok, flat frets give really crappy intonation and that won’t do so here they’re all re-profiled..

the igor, doing short shifts while his NEW bike is repaired??!?, strings up the Vanquish Hollow.. on that subject I’m thinking of renaming that model the ‘Chimera’.. got a trademark infringement on my hands with this one..

each fret is highly polished..

and the strings are strung.. and the cracks hold, though of course that was expected!!

back to some real work..

the eight string, Scorpion model, is rubbed down to 1500 grit wet and dry

all over..

the igors next engineering job..

but until he gets there there are some daily jobs to get on with, the oiling of this elm topped RF slim..

I spend a happy hour buffing the Scorpion guitar to a high gloss

mmm, an aluminium billet..

shiny eight stringer..

very very shiny, and also incredibly comfortable, these ergonomic curves really help her fit like a glove!

the fretboard has been on a long, hard journey and is scraped clean of all the accumulated debris with a sharp chisel

the fretboard is then masked off

frets leveled

and finally the Sonokelling rosewood fretboard is brought to life with a generous application of lemon oil..

the hidden brass bridge is recessed into the top

and the graph tech string saver saddles are then installed

as are the light-weight Schaller tuners, the body of the tuner is made of nylon.. cool..

next up the custom wound eight string pickups are put in place, directly mounted to the body for that little bit of extra tone..

brass nut shaped and polished up

and installed.. the squared off design elements in this guitar.. ie the nut and the pickups, were specified by the customer and are not the way I will be making other versions of this model.. or any other fanned fret guitar for that matter! Each to his own though and we pride ourselves on trying anything you want in a custom guitar!

some local art.. very very impressive!

we check in with the igor and he’s made a lot of aluminium shavings… or swarf!! (good word that one!)

now, a delivery of some pots from the states and we get on with wiring Steinars extended range bass.. though it turns out that the pots delivered were the wrong ones anyway!! Doh!