Tuesday 18th March ’08

a begining… more coats of finish are applied throughout the day to Paul’s Baritone..

onto Tim’s Slimline… a mixture of zebrano, spalted beech, padouk and purpleheart…

bits and pieces are cut to size and planed

and the body blanks start coming together..

on to Fabio’s new guitar.. replacing one that the bloody courier lost!!

and here’s his design.. the Italians still have a few things to teach us..

this lovely chunk of pearwood is the result of a bit of time on the big machines

and here is cut even smaller to make up the components of a mutli-laminate neck

which here is glued together..

another section is added to Tim’s..

purpleheart this time,..

and I have to finish up the end binding..

which here is mitred, glued and then tidied up..

Chris’ PAF.. I found this chunk of ebony for the fingerboard.. and it even has figuring in it.. unfortunately this will be lost when she’s polished up..  the camber is planed on the fretboard

the fret slots marked out

and cut..

… just because…

this piece of ablam needs to be glued to a piece of veneer to stabalise it for cutting fine inlays.  It is sandwhiched between two pieces of wood and some foam.. this pushes out air bubbles in the veneer and makes for a flat laminate..

the abalone dots in the other positions are glued in

and Fabio’ neck is cleaned up on the bandsaw..

on to the 12th fret inlay on Chris’ PAF guitar… this will be my first ever attempt at doing a signature in shell

after cutting out the inlay we mark around it with a sharp knife and then the cavity is recessed..

and she is glued in place!!

after everything is dry all the extra glue etc is filed off..

on to the stainless steel frets.. they are hammered and glued in place as the final act of the day..

mainly because I really wanted to see how this would look!

Ben..

Crimson Guitars HQ