A few photos....

Just adding a few photos, as i get them organised from digital chaos,  of the small bodied acoustic that I was blogging about  a while back.

Im using a router and a specialised jig here to make an accurate, flat an level saddle slot.  Thanks to Phil Messer of the Totnes School of Guitar Making for generously letting me copy his jig :)  I'm allowing myself a little room in the relationship between, bridge height, slot depth and saddle depth in case I want to add a pick up later.

In the above photo you can clearly see the radius I've set for the string to fingerboard radius  relationship.  Including a safety line to stop myself from getting over excited :)

more photos soon.....

Also coming up soon, Lloyd Wellingtons acoustic...

Go X - Avalon Rivers and his Cherry Tele

(click image to embiggen)

"Think Lost prophets meets Fall of Troy."

Avalon is the lead guitarist of Welsh band Go-X and is pictured above holding the guitar I made for him earlier this year.  The body and neck are made from Cherry; the fingerboard is made from Walnut; all the hardwear is Gotoh and it packs some mean Bare Knuckle Blackguard 50's pickups which has a four way selector for an extra series/parallel tone option.  Avi plays his Tele through a Cornford Hellcat 35w and uses theses pedals:

Zvex ooh wah II, Zvex Fuzz Factory, Boss Tuner, Boss CE-5, Boss DD3,Rothwell Atomic Booster and he's also getting an Ibanez WH10v2 wah pedal when they're released in November!

Avi quite often turns up at the workshop with bass player Murphy in tow. Nine times out of ten they both look like tramps who are about to cry, due to hangover agony, after they 'somehow managed' to get locked in a pub the night before.  Funny boys.

visit their MySpace here:

Have a listen to 'James Bond vs Dr Kananga' here:

See them next, launching their new EP at Dec 18th Solus, Cardiff with Ian Watkins of the Lost Prophets.  Ill be going, rocking out with the youth and dancing like my dad.  Yeh!

Parlour Acoustic - Quick Update

Slow but steady progress at the moment, here are a few pics of where I'm up to....

Careful marking out of the saddle location on the bridge.  The scale length is measured on to the bridge then the correct treble and bass distances are calculated to take into account the variation of string stretch so that I can get perfect intonation.  Even finer intonation adjustments are made on the actual saddle itself later on....plenty of opportunity to get myself in a major maths muddle here.....

Next drilling out the peg holes.  Tricky to do a very good job here, a well seated pin allows free movement of the string through the bridge, while trapping the ball end firmly between the peg tip and the bridge plate inside the guitar.

I was a bit naughty and forgot to take pics of me stoning and levelling the frets, oops.  Here I'm polishing the frets after re crowning them.  I move up through 400, 600, 1000 grit and finally, fine Mirlon pads to get a super slidy shiny rounded fret.  I made things a little difficult for myself here, I should've masked off the white stripe on the laburnum fingerboard.  I made it pretty dirty in the polishing process which means I'm going to have to do a nifty clean up job on it after. Listening to Springsteen, not paying attention.  Damn you, The Boss :)

After the frets have been polished its time to fill the fret ends, where the saw has emerged through the sides of the fingerboard.  To do this I melt some dyed shellac with a soldering iron then sand it flush......you can see the shellac stick in this photo.

While the guitar is in this position its a good opportunity to add the side dot markers.  Here I'm using 2mm white mother of pearl dots.  There's been some careful depth gauging of the hole going on here!

And in this pic I've started work on the truss rod cover.  A piece of laburnum, cut to the required shape, taped down to the work bench then shaped with 150 grit sand paper.  In this pic here the outline is a little uneven, more work needed.

I'm off to Bestival for 5 days tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be getting things finished by the end of next week.  Woo-hoo!

U2 360 Degree Tour - Cardiff Millenium Stadium

The small bodied acoutic is almost finished, i'll post the results soon.  

Meanwhile enjoys some pics of the U2 build the other week, working on the Cardiff leg of the U2 360 Degree Tour.  Here's some pics of the construction.  The initial steel build took 3 days; then there was a day for the production load in of sound, lights, video and backline.  Showday, then 3 days getting everything out.

The Hours and Glasvegas were supporting, the place was packed, good times all round :)  

 

Parlour Acoustic - Neck Shaping

Final neck shaping starts by using an in channel gouge to take the neck down to its final thickness.  Using these reference points I'll join up the neck shape with a spoke shave and sanding block, referencing with a straight edge.

A lot of time spent in this area, getting a really good shape for a comfortable grip and for the instrument to feel great in your hands.  I love to carve these areas, by now I'm using finer and finer files.

In this photo you can see three transitional areas where the shape is not yet fluid.  At the head stock and two areas at the heel.  I will spend some hours making the whole neck flow as one, making it as playable as possible with a great shallow 'c' shape.

Ive got a little behind at the moment  as i was working on the U2 360 Tour at the Millenium Stadium, building the fantastic 'Claw' stage.  Ill post an update on this later this week.....

Deptford John - guitarhospital.co.uk

Working recently at the Oasis and Take That Carnival Tour at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, I was asked by John 'Deptford' Armitage to bring down some of my guitars for him to have a look at.  I got the thumbs up and managed to generate a lot of interest.

Deptford is the guitar tech for the Take That band, responsible for the day to day maintenance of the on-tour instruments.  Hes also tech'd for bands such as Iron Maiden Motorhead, the Manics, Stereophonics and the list goes on.....have a look at his site here:  

http://www.guitarhospital.co.uk/index.html

Heres the biog from his site:

"After 30 years travelling the world with rock and pop superstars, John decided it was time to put his talents to good use nearer home. The result is the Whitstable and London based GUITAR HOSPITAL.

John started his music industry career back in 1978 as a favour for his next door neighbour and has never looked back!

He has repaired and maintained guitars literally across the globe both on tour and in the studio, working with rock acts such as: IRON MAIDEN • THE BLACK CROWES • MOTORHEAD • MANIC STREET PREACHERS • DOGS D’AMOUR • THE VERVE •THE CHOIRBOYS • DEF LEPPARD • STEREOPHONICS • WHITESNAKE • DREAM THEATRE • SCORPIONS with the ultimate rock gig being SPINAL TAP at Wembley Stadium for Live 8 where John had 11 bass players to look after during one song!

He has looked after guitars and basses for the top session players in the UK on massive arena and stadium pop tours over the years including: THE SPICE GIRLS • S CLUB 7 • GEORGE MICHAEL • POP IDOL and the reunited juggernaut that is TAKE THAT – their 2009 tour being an 80 truck tour of the UK’s stadiums where John looked after 5 different musicians.

He has worked with many female artists and their bands including: ANNIE LENNOX • MARIANNE FAITHFUL • ALANNIS MORISETTE • SARAH BRIGHTMAN • NATALIE IMBRUGLIA • MEL C • KYLIE.

As well as a variety of eclectic artists such as: JOHN SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION • ROBERT PALMER • NICK LOWE • JAMES • NEW ORDER • CRAIG DAVID • DANIEL BEDINGFIELD.

John also maintains several private guitar collections for various music industry luminaries including MICK JAGGER. As well as maintaining and repairing guitars under extremely pressurised circumstances (backstage, understage, in the dark, mid stadium show, mid song……!) John also builds and maintains guitar systems to create the individual sound required by the guitarist on particular tracks in the studio as well as on tour. He is a specialist in vintage guitars and amps."

Parlour Acoustic - fret installation and neck shaping

In its current state, the strings will reach the bridge at 13mm from the soundboard, so here I'm just tweaking the angle of the fingerboard.  A figure just below 12mm will future proof the guitar from any future  up-bow in the neck that may result from string pressure as well as providing optimum action and tone.

Next job is to radius the fingerboard. I use a block plane to achieve the desired shape at both ends then join then up using a scraper plane and a sanding block, referencing from my straight edge.

Below you can see the end of the fingerboard in silhouette, note the radius I've  created.  At this point also, I add some initial relief to the fingerboard.  Following the trial string I'll be able to judge the natural position of the neck and then add the perfect relief to the frets for a super action.

As soon as I'm happy with the fingerboard camber, I run through grits 150, 240, 320 and 400 with a soft sanding block.  Next I cut enough frets to match the slots and nip the tangs so that there's not too much waste overhanging the fingerboard edge.

Installing the frets past the join is tricky, i don't want to use the hammer because I'll be exerting too large a shock on the sound board which is only 3.1mm thick at this point.  I use a clamp here.

After the join  I use the traditional method of the fretting hammer, spilled tea and sore finger tips :)

(note its  an unusual 13 fret join rather than the 12 of a small bodied guitar or the 14 fret join of most guitars.  The extra fret access at this position aids playing access but also allows me to move the soundhole position into a slightly more responsive area of the Sitka sound board. I cant wait to string it up!)

After trimming the edges of the frets to the fingerboard, I use a 400 grit diamond stone to get the  fret edges flush and smooth.  Later when I dress the frets, there'll not be a sharp edge in sight.