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Sunday the 30th of January 2011

after buffing up the lacquer on the backplates they are installed.. the main control plate is fixed with magnets and locating pins

to allow quick and easy access to the battery while removing the uglyness that is the usual black plastic box!

the control knobs are installed

and then I have a bit of fun making a truss rod cover from a chunk of solid abalone..

after a bit of a tidy up there’s another guitar on my bench

James’ custom guitar design is very very interesting.. and the headstock is a real feature!

obviously a lot od custom work involved, the beginings of the knurled tuner knobs are.. knurled..

drilled and threaded

and the first set is pretty much ready.. I’m very much enjoying the odd bit of metal-work!

on to this old partially finished tremolo body .

it is recycled into a lovely low profile fixed bridge unit loaded with wilkinson saddles

my aerospace protractor, a thing of utter beauty, is brought out and the string pull marked out on the Delta’s headstock..

the multi-hued shavings fly

and the customised locking Sperzel tuners are fitted

the curved section ended up protruding over the side of the headstock and just didn’t work, so I built a few more with a sleeve to fit over the offending bits

like so..

and here we have, after a few hours, an option that some luthiers charge £300 extra for!!

a lot of my life is spent painting a black background on all my guitar photo’s.. but it is worth all the late nights when you browse through our gallery

the abalone truss rod cover was not to last , too gaudy by half for this client

so I cut into a chunk of ebony

and make a new one

this certainly is the more refined option of the two.. :(

(I love this photo!) after some troubleshooting all the wiring in this custom Robert Fripp guitar is fully functional and tested through my little roland synth

a basic set-up and then she is left to mature for a while!

now, a Robert Fripp Hollow model here.. another victim of our quality control.. the binding had been scraped away too much by an over-zealous apprentice!!

this was only noticed after applying some finish unfortunately so the oil is all stripped off..

revealing the elm top and tone-chambered flame pearwood body

the replacement binding nececitates a bit of recarving

but after some elbow grease

this beauty is ready for finishing

the fretboard is masked off and the edges of the binding prepared with a good rub-down with 0000 wire wool!

now the staining begins.. black for starters

this then is lightly sanded back with the random orbital sander

and then the red stain is applied..

the elm in particular looks stunning!  I’m very much in love with the whole red/black thing..

the multi-ply binding is slowly scraped clean with a new scalpel blade

and she reveals herself to us!

the headstock is next up

and then, after removing the masking, this one is set aside to wait for a spot in the spray booth!

I play around with some vinyl.. unsuccesfully really

but we’ll attack the p-90′s covers later on.. for now I mark everything out

pre-drill

and indulge in some routing fun!

lovely!!  I’m planning a curved aluminium top to the pups to match the curvature of the top

now, the bridge is recessed

and finally an access carve is added to give a bit more adjustment and access to to the grub screws..  I can’t wait to see this beauty complete!

All my best to you and yours!!

Ben

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