090109

Friday 9th January ’09

we left off with these rosewood pieces glued accross a lateral break in the neck of this cheap SG copy..

excess material is chiseled away..

and then filed and rasped away.. and here is where I find that the repair has in fact worked and she will live to play again!

and then the neck is stripped using the random orbital sander

the binding is masked

and a cherry stain applied.. she will never look new but she will have a comfortable oil/wax neck..

on to Jason’s custom superstrat.. this has been too long coming!

I’ve treated myself to a new pair of ear defenders (my years playing heavy rock have left some significant damage to my hearing! be warned!!) .. and use them while I recess the Kahler trem..

to get this beautiful low profile look!

the sustainer and the pickups will be direct mounted to the body.. I can’t explain why it is but doing this does have an appreciable effect on the tone of the guitar!!!

and so…

in the back of my mind I’ve been thinking about how to make a strong and stable timber pickup surround.. the problem is that invariably somewhere on the surround you will have weak spots here the grain is short, this cracks very easily and sucks.. finally i think I have it..

the templates are made.. and a chunk of ebony pulled out of stock..

it is cut to size..

..just to give it a go I do the classic guitar builders joint.. edge to edge.. of course that does not work..

so we get pretty..

at around about dawn.. very very cold!!!

the reason for replacing thr standard plastic surrounds is that they are cheap and ugly.. so the edges of everything are rounded over and made pretty..