Category Archives: Guitars Two of the four guitars in this run will have a violin inspired paint job. These pics show the process so far. The guitars are given a dark amber stain, a clear coat and then some darkening with some burnt umber lacquer. I top it off with a touch of lemon yellow lacquer to brighten […]  Gilad Hekselman stopped by with his guitar the other day for some adjustments and tweaks. He travels all over the place with his axe and plays it quite a bit, so it was time for a quick pit stop. We also installed a smaller tail piece to do some experimenting with a longer string length […]  Heres some pics of the binding process I did for one of the laminates in this run. My client Brian decided to add some maple binding on the guitar he reserved in order to get some contrast with the color he chose (like this). Its gonna look sweet! Binding work on the laminates is a […]  Ive been hard at work on my mini run of 14″ laminates. This series of pics show more of the various steps involved. This model is designed to be primarily an electric instrument and the carved and scalloped quartersawn spruce bracing impart a nice woody tone while preventing feedback. The bracing is custom tailored and […]  I strung up Ken’s guitar for the first time today. Nice! Always a good day in the shop when its a guitar’s birthday haha. I made all the hardware out of flame maple and oil stained it all jet black including the pickup covers. During waxing and polishing some of the color gets buffed away […]  Here’s the laminate plate process Im using on the run of 14” guitars that i’m on! (see my first post on this for the whole scoop). Last year i got a nice vacuum system for the shop, and it makes the coolest laminate plates for these guitars. They use maple veneer, and are laminated in […]  Things have really picked up here at the shop! I made a 14″ laminate last fall and posted it here in November. Its garnered a lot of interest and i took a bunch of orders in. YES! So I decided to do a mini production run of the guitars, and these pics show the various […]  Major progress on Kens guitar this week- i got it all sanded out and prepped for finish. The coloring is done in a bunch of steps. First i apply different stains to get the base color starting with a golden brown dilute ground. Then a darker brown, then a yellow. Its all rubbed in by […]  Moving right along on Ken’s project! Pics include bracing, Preparing the compound angle neck attachment, body assembly etc… The guitar is all sanded out and prepped now ready for stain and finish! STOKED.  Here is some more progress shots of Ken’s project! This is plate carving, the plates start out as rough blocks, in this case old dry European spruce and nicely flamed big leaf maple. Each block’s edge is squared first with a big spiral bit on the milling table. This is more accurate than using a […]  Hi guys- I started out on a new project for my client Ken just before the holidays. I’m back in the shop doing more work on the project- it will be 15″ x 2″ deep thinline archtop named after his daughter Malia. It will be x braced with 2 humbuckers, and will be finished in […]  The clear coats on Russ’ guitar are all set up- time to level the paint and polish it. The paint is pretty shiny when it leaves the sprayroom, but always has a slight bumpiness to it from the spray gun. I start sanding with soapy water with 1000 grit, then 1200. I sand it all […]  The clear coat process for Russ’ guitar is all finished- looks awesome!! The paint laid down just right (gotta love when that happens), and i’ll be able to start cutting and leveling with 1200 / 1500 grit paper in a few days after it sets up. Then a lengthy treatment on the buffing wheels and […]  Here’s some pics of the sunburst process on Russ’ guitar. Its turning out great! All the maple bindings are first masked off with auto pinstriper’s tape, then the burst is applied in many passes using burnt sienna and wine red lacquers, as well as a final pass with amber. After it dries for an hour […]  More work on Russ’ non cutaway 16″ archtop… Binding is all done, I sanded and smoothed everything out and mounted the neck. The guitar’s maple parts BLEW UP when the first coat of sealer hit. Awesome figure to the back sides and head face. Woohoo get’n good!  My client Russ wants an old school style Gibson L4 inspired acoustic archtop like one of these: example example. This translates into FUN for me since I seldom get an order for an oval hole non cutaway (I think its been almost 10 years!). We decided on an adirondack spruce top (a little streaky in […]  Hey guys! As i mentioned in my previous post, I’ve had a ton of requests for an affordable laminate archtop over the years, so this month i decided to execute some ideas that i’ve had brewing in order to offer a great sounding laminate that is affordable. This is a hollow model, no center block, […]  Hey here’s some bench shots of a new 7 string DDC during setup. The pickups havent come in yet but thats all it needs. Pretty cool guitar! This is the very first DDC7 27-1/2 scale prototype even tho i posted a maple face version earlier. This proto guitar is AVAILABLE at a killer introductory price!  I’ve had a ton of requests for an affordable laminate archtop over the years, so this month i decided to execute some ideas that i’ve had brewing. This is a hollow model, no center block, and features custom tailored lightweight laminated plates done here in house. I’m going to have a full unveiling of this […]  Finishing up with another DDC Bolt on. Here it is with the hardware temporarily set in place. Looking SWEET!  This is gonna be a 6 string DDC guitar- maple neck, 2 humbuckers etc etc. This is the morning after i did the color and first clear coats. Looked killer in the sunlight!! Dont mind my fingerprints haha!  One of my archtops was featured in Robert Shaw’s new book “Electrified- the art of contemporary electric guitar”. Pretty cool book- some awesome guitars in there wow! |
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