271110

Saturday the 27th of November 2010

we left last week having stained this Robert Fripp Slimline guitar and scraping the binding clean.. after a few touch up’s of the stain the fretboard is carefully masked off and she moves into the spray booth for her first coat of lacquer..

the big developement of the past few weeks is the decision to create two more affordable ranges of our guitars.. the signature and signature pro

for which I will need not a few templates!!

four at a time get routed from the original.. the Dissident in this case.. though I will be adding a trem and three single coils.. remind you of something??

the doublecut is also slated for a return.. one of my personal favourite guitars of this past year! Though that has much to do with the scalloped fretboard..

now.. the Muse Descendant is prepped for lacquer too..

as is this stock paf hollow.. and as promised under lacquer she looks absolutely amazing!!

the weather has turned now though so I have to resort to artificial means.. basically the guitars need a good cooking in between coats of finish!

also in-between finish I get on with the paf blackburst.. locking sperzels installed

followed by bespoke 4×4 humbuckers from Wizard pickups, the Roland GK-3 pickup and a custom bridge of our making..

coat 2..or 3 of lacquer and the slim is starting to look the part as well!  I do love that blue!

the fiddly, and easily brakable, saddles from the variax are fitted to the bridge

..don’t I look pretty.. £5 on ebay for a chemical mask from eastern europe somewhere and it’s the best mask I’ve ever used in my spray booth!!  Pretty too!

finally the paf blackburst is strung up and left to settle

now.. the spraying has finished for now an the dust can fly.. ie.. I can tidy up my workspace

in readyness for a day of filming.. in fact the last day of filming on the 24 hour paf..

we start with just over four hours to go on our self-imposed timescale and it’s not looking good..

the whole guitar has to be rubbed down, firstly with a random orbital sander

and then by hand going through the grits of wet and dry paper..

over 2 hours later and she is buffed up to a high gloss! beautiful!

next the frets are masked off, leveled and then they too are buffed up to a shine

then the first of several coats of lemon oil are applied..

standard sperzels are installed

and  I stupidly decide to spend the time to make a brass nut.. it is pretty though!

I’ve been in two minds about this bridge.. thinking ir was either a piece of beautiful engineering and gorgeous to boot.. or just plain ugly.. I think it’s the latter.. mmm?

the bareknuckle nailbombs are next to go in.. fitted direct to the body for better tone but my next inovation is to use a massive spring to give even more transfer between the body and the pickup.. and it works!

sexy beast!!  She is strung up and sings like a dream.. however time has well and truly run out!!

and sje still needs wiring.. the cavity is shielded and the electronic bits installed

another time wasting option as I make and install a custom curved ebony jackplate

and finally she is completed.. we can still call her the 24 hour guitar.. just.. 24 hours and 58 minutes.. not bad going, though next time I will not use a lacquer finish!  needless to say she sounds amazing.. even through the shitty little practice amp in the workshop the padouk and bubinga combination is amazing!!  The video charting the whole 24 hour build is now in post-production and we’ll be editing it down to around 10 short videos for general youtube consumption and maybr a longer dvd for those who want the full experience!

All my best to you and yours!

Ben

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