210810

Saturday the 21st of August 2010

Now, the double cut (still waiting for a first name!) .. her tuner holes are drilled..

while igor continues with the refinishing of the paf blackburst.. currently without the black, or the burst!?

..ah ha!

now, the side dots are installed in the double cut

and the cavities are marked out

the cavities are pre-drilled to make the routing easier later on

.. some easy routing.. not quite sure why I had three routers out, but what can you do?

I do like the look of these cavities, nice and tight

next up is the control cavity and backplate recess

and then on to the carving process, the neck is shaped along with the all-access neck to body joint

leaving the top looking a bit flat and boring..

or not..  it’s surprisingly difficult to get this looking symetrical..

some masking off on igors part

and I apply the burst..

now, we changed our minds about the depth of this body and use the pin router to re-thickness her

and then it is used again to rout the internal face of the control cavity to make it match the top..

one of igors first ever inlays.. just waiting for some engraving.. he’s not half bad!!

I have to fine-tune the carving here by hand in the traditional way

and then I too have some inlay to do

..doesn’t look too good here.. Igor..? take over!!

or not, he’s busy scaping clean the binding.. revealing a truly stunning guitar..

the double cut needs a mahogany backplate

the bobbin sander is good at this job.

next up the back is flattened down a bit..

see?  I really do love multi-ply binding!

..ok, change of project.. Mike’s neck..

..while the neighbours horse excitedly discovers some berries out back of the shop

I rout out a truss rod cavity

and the access hole for that truss rod

the blank is, however, too narrow and needs another section

for this we’re using this bit of recycled mahogany..

everything is planed perfectly flat by hand and prepared..

for clamping.. this will be a very pretty and stable neck!

I managed to make myself rather ill while trying to clean these two spray guns.. the filters in my mask decided to give up the ghost and I didn’t notice being slowly poisoned by thinner fumes! .. Friday off then!!

ok, the igor did a few hours of sanding prep on the double cut

it is now time to prepare the bridge and tailpiece positions.

the neck joint is tidied up with a rasp and file..

the fret ends are rounded over for comfort..

and then sealed with superglue.. the scallops make these bits of the fretboard a bit fragile!

now, time to tempt the carpal tunnel syndrome gnome..

..yep, four hours later and the oiling begins..

and even then in order to get a better quality finish on the fretboard the oil is applied with varying grades of wet and dry paper..

..till Monday and igors loving hands.. fingers crossed she’ll be under oil by Tuesday!

Have a great weekend all!

Ben

{sfh}redefining|400|110|5|5|0.3|0|0|0|1|0|14|0|1{/sfh}