Saturday 17th April 2010
Good morning all.. Sunny but chilly.. And after a very succesful show over the weekend we have a very messy workshop!
It looks like a small bomb has gone off.. All the stuff from the show was just dumped in the door..
First out of the bag is my beautiful new quick change drum sander.. This will save me so much time and money!
goodbye to the igor he’s off for two weeks biking around france.. Lucky cock!
Ok, minus an igor I have to step up to the plate and get on with a load of his jobs as well as the actual luthiery.
There are a few spots where the filler hasn’t taken properly that need dots of lacquer applying.. Smelly work..
Welcome to Steiner’s extended range bass..
And here is her bespoke hardware…
The first piece installed is the head.. Um… Bit…
Ok, the bridge is going to be recessed and thus needs a new template for the routing..
Finally the bespoke eight string bridge is installed..
more access is required for the adjustment screws..
The piezo wires go through the neck tone chambers..
A filler is cut from some pearwood and shaped to match the carving on the body..
Finally the piezo wires are all hidden and the bridge is in place..
Just for kicks I try out the new quick-change bobbin.. It is a beautiful piece of engineering!
Ok, I’ve pulled out a few multi-laminate neck blanks.. Mike and Tim’s guitars are in need of necks..
A template is brought out and used to mark out the neck profiles.
The first of them is bandsawed out.. This new blade is cutting mahogany like butter!
The headstock break-angle is planed perfectly flat by hand.. with a sharp plane!
Meet Caroline.. She is trying out for an apprenticeship! ..rather succesfully I might add! It takes a special sort of person to see the subtelies of the curves we deal with every day!
A bit of staining on the erb..
A real begining on the erb and I cut away a section at the rear of the instrument
The tuning block is drilled out..
How’s this for a custom piece of headless guitar hardware…
A single string is installed to test things out.. And it is working very very well!
So far the locking nut design works very well as well.. Though I feel fairly certain that it will have to be split in four
Yes, very happy with how this is turning out
caroline’s here again for the morning, she starts on this prototype whicj needs sanding down..
My work area is a tip once again.. and I really need to get stuck in in the absence of an igor..
I’m working now on rubbing down the lacquer on the clear 45rpm.. She’s slowly coming together!
Caroline’s doing very well on this prototype single coil guitar…
About half way through rubbing this 45rpm down my fingers have had enough.. Nearly there though..
After a few hours on the phone to suppliers it’s time for dust! We couldn’t finish carving the twins at the show.. We cut as close to the fretboard as we can with the carving disk..
I use my newest chisel (one of only two new bought chisels I own!!) to cut away the excess to the depth of the binding..
The specs call for a deeper dishing around the edges than on your bog standard les paul.. Very carefully done!
The other half.. We start the carve by bringing the edges down to the height we want the binding at..
The wenge topped twin is finally carved.. Roughly but she’s lookin good!
The neck will end up being about 28mm thick! 1.1 inches..
The neck is even non-symetrical with more ‘meat’ on the bass side of the neck.. Ergonomics in action..
Now, onto the rosewood topped twin.. This is smelly stuff when being carved!
The rosewood top is halfway there and the figure in it is really coming to the fore!
And here she is.. Very pretty guitar this one!
Both necks are now carved as well as the ‘more access’ neck/body joint..
We’re not in tomorrow so I’ll leave you with this lovely shot of the twins.. Can’t wait for the binding now!
Have a great weekend all!!
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