110810

Tuesday the 11th day of August.. and we’re back at work!!

 the igor is back, uninjured and raring to go, and I am slowly getting used to the reduced sleep that comes with a new baby in the house.. welcome back

an easy enough start for me..  the moonshine needs a once over and setup..

the nut height is adjusted to give the best possible string height, incidently a too high action here will also adversly affect your tuning and intonation!!

now, a slight earthing problem has shown up

so we put an earth wire beneath each of the six bridges.. and set her up again.. unfortunately at this point in my afternoon my wonderful N-97 smart phone decided to die.. it is now off being repaired and the tweets etc will be coming from my old ‘normal’ phone with the very slow input and no wireless connection.. grrr  (..the question is when does a phone become a camera, pc, tv etc..?)

now, this idea has been in my brain for the past few weeks.. hopefully this will be a new trem for James’ Delta guitar.. now waiting for some custom springs that are on order!

good morning.. I really am not good without enough sleep!!

ok, zebrano..

split down to size

and then the backplates are roughly cut to size

the new(ish) disk sander is used to shape them

and finally we check that fit on Gary’s paf..

the carving begins

then the sanding (normally igors job.. I’ve almost forgotten how it feels to hold a random orbital sander!!)

I need even more space for the variax pcb so a drill press is used to drill out the inside of one of the backplates

this is then carved.. the same way we would go about building a jazz guitar or a violin..

I love seeing the difference some oil brings to the proceedings!

ta da..

next.. and you can see I’m slowly building up steam!

I want to see how long it actually takes to build an average guitar.. I do think working on one at a time will improve out almost terminal backlog!

the truss rod cavity is routed out

next up we start band-sawing out the final neck shape

we have out electronics specialist in house for a few days working on that infamous variax!

the final dimensions are planed in by hand..

..this is all a bit beyond me still..

I much prefer the dustier side of the job! .. here i rout out the truss rod access hole

now, a beautiful piece of maccassar ebony (I had set aside for myself until Tom came into the shop)

the truss rod is installed and protected from the glue..

and finally the fretboard is installed!

next day the excess is removed (we’ll save it for nuts and or some real ebony binding)

excess ebony is planed off by machine..

and then the radius is planed in by hand

lovely bit of wood.. :(

we get it to length..

and start marking out the fret slots

masking tape on the saw helps me cut to the right depth..

and finally the frets are hammered and glued in place…

… and breathe..

now, the fret ends are cut away and filed flush..

and to the scalloping..

and a happy igor.. back at last, between us we’ve lost about 6 weeks of work time!!!

a slightly modified set of callipers are used to match the depth of each scallop

igor is starting with the muse descendant..

not my thing, and a lot of hard work, but Tom will love her!

sealer.. and more sealer..

the body next, the wings are planed to the right thickness..

and here’s a sneak preview of the final doublecut design..

All our best to you and yours!

Ben

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