Wednesday 30th January ’08

the amount of work that ended up going on through the day just goes to show you what happens on a day that goes according to plan.. pretty much exactly what didn’t happen yesterday!!! ..enjoy!

a fresh begining is begun on this left-handed ‘helmet’ model

the edges are cleaned up with rasps and the sander

and then on to the purpleheart and zebrano neck for Tim, unfortunately after the first attempt there was a slight glue line between two of the pieces, therefore it needed re-cutting and re glueing..

Erik’s 8 string tap guitar.. the plans are checked for size

and then contact adhesive is slathered over everything

while the glue dried a bit the Kahler trem position is carefully marked out

then the 8-string plans are glued to the template material

a new template has to be made for the single-coil pickups of the leftie six-stringer

carefully cut out and ready for use..

the positions of everything are carefully worked out

the cavities are pre-drilled to make it easier on the router (I’ve snapped too many router bits to think about!)

the touch-guitar template is cut out on the bandsaw

this will be a very interesting project!!

a solid chunk of two inch thick padouk..

is cut in half.. stability over aesthetics every time!!!

a wedge shaped section is cut from the waste to go down the middle of the instrument.

the sun comes out and this horse decides to get up off it’s arse..

and then the sheep come and take over.. the horses seem rather wary of the sheep…Baaaa!!

everything is run over the planer.. with it’s newly sharpened blades

and then I need to sharpen the blades of my handplanes.. both sides have to be perfectly flat and shiny.. not like this..

like this!! … it can take several hours to get a very blunt blade to this state..

but when they are kept well it doesn’t take any where near that!!

my very very long.. hitherto unused.. no 8 plane is brought out to perfectly flatten each surface

and here is the multi-stringer.. or at least her beginings..,

and the second try at Tim’s RF Slim..

a lot of routing is performed on the leftie

and the last stage is recessing the Kahler down into the top..

which, I think, adds a bit of class to the proceedings

the body carves are marked out

then carved and sanded.. rough sanded that is..

and here she is after rubbing some naphta on to temporarily bring out the figure in the maple.. this is one of the prettiest tops I’ve had in the workshop!

Till the morrow,

Ben

Crimson Guitars HQ