Category Archives: Jazz 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 […]  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 a glimpse into how I made the bridge base for my current archtop project. I have all my components rendered very accurately in CAD, and I can machine a very precise surface on the underside of the ebony bridge base that matches the exterior of the guitar’s arch. There will be very little fitting […]  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, […]  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 […]  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!  Wrapping up a GHex model for my client Michel from France… here’s some preliminary pics! He’s flying to New York this week to pick it up- looking forward to it. The guitar turned out great. I will be doing a proper photo shoot this week at the studio…  Here’s my 250th guitar! Its finally finished and I’m really pleased. It was a lot of fun doing all the commemorative type stuff and special features on it like the soundholes, the headstock inlay as well as the “250” tail piece engraving. The woods are European spruce, figured mahogany, quilted mahogany binding and ebony fingerboard […]  Just finished up my stealth 14″ project and I’m very pleased. Its all triple stained black with ebony and black parts (even custom installed real ebony pickup covers). Guaranteed to evade radar with its stealthy vibe. Definitely a fun project- it is shipping to its new home in Arizona tomorrow. I’ll be playing it all […]  Hi everyone its been a while since i posted an update. Figure i better get back into it- lots of cool stuff happening at the shop so stay tuned. This latest project is for my client Todd and is actually an overhaul. It started out as a laminate top guitar that Todd purchased a while […] |
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