Greg's Music And Geek Blog

Tue, 20 Jun 2006

I’m Building Guitars In The New Shop

You’ll remember that my workshop is done at last. Well, I’ve been busy getting actual work done.

First, I clamped up the braces in a Go-Bar deck. All the braces and the top are fitted to a 28 foot radius dish so the top is actually very slightly domed for extra strength.

The top of the guitar is now braced up and the braces are scalloped and sanded.

This guitar will be an OM style with a cutaway. I just havn’t cut away the “cutaway” part of the top yet.

The rosette is kind of different. I went through my wood stash and found a really curly chunk of maple.

I cut the piece into sheets and then I cut a disk from one of the sheets of maple. The extra sheet of maple will be the headstock faceplate.

I inlayed a very thin ring at the edge of the sound hole so the soundhole is “bound” by a solid ring of maple. Then I left a small ring of the original spruce top, then I inlayed a black-white-black perfling, another maple ring, and one more black-white-black perfling.

The backs and sides of this guitar are Indian rosewood. The back is joined and it looks great.

I’m going to inlay a strip of flamed maple down the center of the back and line it with the same purfling I’m using on the soundhole and the binding. Here’s the center strip taped into place to see how the colors will look. It’s wiped with some mineral spirits to help show the color.

It’s good to be building instruments again.

This story is from the [/music/lutherie] department
permanent link

Sun, 11 Jun 2006

Two Events You Need To Know About.

First Event: Slow Jam is this Tuesday at 7:00. We’re all going to learn a new song together. It’s going to be fun. Also, I’ve dropped off press releases for the Slow Jam to the Auburn Journal, the Colfax Record, and The Sentinel. If any of them printed them then we may have some more folks at the jam. I also asked for our slow jam to be listed in the California Bluegrass Association website. So who knows, we may have some new people there on Tuesday.

As always, Slow Jam is free.

Be sure to tell all your musician friends. The more the merrier.

Second Event: This Wednesday, June 14th at 7:00 I’ll be presenting a free seminar on how to restring your guitar, mandolin, or banjo. If you’ve been taking your guitar to the music store to have them change your strings for you them this is the seminar for you. You can change your own strings cheaper than the music store and you don’t have to leave your instrument somewhere overnight.

Both events are at Music And More.

I hope to see you there.

This story is from the [/music/jams] department
permanent link

The New Shop

The new shop is done. Well, pretty much. At least it’s done enough to allow me to start building guitars.

One of the things I really miss about the old house is my shop. I use to have a seperate 400 square foot building just for my shop. Now I’m converting our garage to a shop. Here’s how it’s going so far:

The garage use to have 2 roll up doors:

I’ve framed in the left door and added a new door and window.

What a difference from winter to spring!

Inside the shop, I installed six more light fixtures

Inside the shop I have a pretty good work triangle.

From the main workbench I can see out the window to the treetops. It’s kind of like working in a tree house. That window was spray painted black when we bought the house. It took quite a bit of scraping with single edge razor blades to clean that off. The outside of the window hadn’t been cleaned since the Nixon administration so that took some scrubbing as well.

As I stand at the main bench by toolbox is on my right. Behind me I have my joiner, table saw, router table and Performax drum sander.

To my left I have the drill press, sander and bandsaw.

And of course, to the immediate left of the workbench is the shop fridge. That’s for glue storage and the occasional beer.

Although it’s still pretty messy in this picture I should have the bench tops cleaned of and ready to work in a day or so.

I got rid of my old clamp rack and built a new wall rack. That empty corner is where the dust collector will go.

Behind the tablesaw is my “Ultimate Workbench” (which is currently set up in chop saw mode) and plenty of shelves for wood storage.

Also, right through that door will be a separate 8x8 finishing room. Right now it’s the back of the storage area of the garage. But it WILL have another bench for putting the finish on an instrument and my buffing wheels will go in there.

So that’s the shop. It’s been less than 2 and a half months since we “officially” moved in and I’ve already got a shop built. That feels pretty darn good.

What I’m listening to today: DI.FM Vocal Trance

This story is from the [/music/lutherie] department
permanent link

---