In a previous post, I showed a photoshop mockup of a guitar design I was working on. Now here is the real thing, with a few minor changes.
Pretty firewood
It is October now, and starting to get chilly at night; so time once again to get ready for the joys of heating with wood. I buy firewood from a few different local folks, one of whom called this morning and asked if I needed any yet. So I say “Sure, bring it on over” and start clearing the junk out of the firewood rack. A couple hours later he shows up with his little truck loaded up with these lovely chunks of figured maple.
Nice color, with some good spalting, lots of curl and blister figure. I can get some usable pieces out of some of it for random small projects, but most of it will go into the stove as I grit my teeth and close my eyes. Oh well. He says he still has the rest of the tree still in one piece and can load it on my truck when he gets his tractor fixed. This will be interesting….
Posted in dismalia, wood
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First new Redbird!
In a previous post, I discussed the redesign and dedication of the Redbird model.
The new design will have a double-cutaway with two humbucking pickups, but in the midst of the design process, I received an order for a single cutaway Redbird with three single coil pickups. The customer wanted a guitar just like the last Telecaster-shaped Redbird I built, but shaped like a Les Paul.
My friend, Susan Thornton, helped me with the control plate, pickup mounts, and other parts made of copper which we ran through her rolling press with some scraps of old lace, leaving its texture imprinted on the surface.
$340 of my profit from this Ax will be going to the Japanese Red Cross Society to help with relief efforts for the victims of the Earthquake and Tsunami.
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Visualisation
Here’s the latest project:
The top is beech barnwood, sanded down just below the grey weathering. Fretboard is persimmon.
Haven’t decided on the rest of the woods.
The bridge is made from an antique cast iron drawer pull, and the control plate is a copper doorknob backplate.
They will be arriving in the mail today.
Yes, I have been having a bit of fun with photoshop (well, the Microsoft version thereof, anyway)
This is an image I cobbed together from pictures of other axes, the wood I will be using for the top, and ones from the Ebay listings where I bought the hardware.
Most guitarists can get a pretty good idea of what to expect when they ask for a fiesta red Strat with a Kahler trem and pearloid pickguard, but the stuff I do is often a bit less easy to imagine by way of description.
This provides me with an effective way of presenting ideas to customers interested in commisioning a custom instrument.
Plus it’s a lot of fun.
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The Low Down
Finally a new blog post, and finally a Muleskinner Bass!!
One piece yellow poplar body with a maple neck. The pickguard is L grade micarta, which is a bakelite-like product made from linen and resin under high pressure.
Had a little fun with the propane torch. I like this effect a lot. It not only blackens the wood, but when the charred areas are rubbed with steel wool, it leaves a very nice texture. The harder rings of winter wood hold up to the burning process better than the summer wood, which is more easily worn away by the steel wool.
The endgrain cracks are nice, too.
The fretboard is black locust
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Spring
This is the time of year when the water flows, both from the sky and from the ground. It fills the small creek and its smaller tributary by our house. Both of these are typically dry much of the year, but now they churn with life and the frogs rejoice. About a half mile or so up the hollow, it issues forth from under the rocks in a magical little nook in the hillside, sheltered by a huge, gnarly old buckeye tree.
A concrete cachement holds its fill, but mostly the water tumbles over tiers of mossy rocks amidst various vessels and assorted artifacts while Nataraja performs his dance of destruction in patinaed bronze to welcome the revival of the greenery.
Then it makes its way down to a small pool presided over by a more contemplative and anonymous ceramic deity, who offers her blessings as it flows out to join other rivulets and runoff, and continues on down the hill, past my shop, out to the larger creeks, rivers, and eventually the ocean.
Bon voyage!
Posted in dismalia, ruminations
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Stripes
Three Barnstormer laminated neck blanks.
From left~ walnut and osage orange; cherry and cucumbertree; walnut and cucumbertree.
The one on the right will end up looking like this:
I am very picky about the wood I use for one piece necks. I like it to be very straight-grained and clear to ensure stability, but not all wood is like that.
I like to be able to use wood that is not perfect. This is easy for the bodies of the guitars, as they are larger slabs of wood, and defects in them do not cause the problems that they would in the neck.
Very often, a board that would otherwise make a fine neck will have a small knot, crack or the grain may not be entirely straight.
In this case, what I do is cut it up into strips, keep the ones with no defects, and use the rest for other purposes, usually kindling.
Then, by arranging the good pieces in a manner that balances out the unstraight grain’s tendency to warp with humidity changes, and gluing them together, I end up with a neck blank that is actually stronger and more stable than a single piece of wood. This way, I can also combine different woods which not only looks nice, but allows allows me to use lighter weight woods in conjunction with stronger ones. I make one piece necks as well, as they are aesthetically pleasing in their own right, and are perfectly fine as long as the wood is the way I like it for this purpose.
This is nothing new of course, but is usually only done in necks with angled headstocks. Fender style necks with inline headstocks are almost always one piece, mostly because that is what people have come to expect, it is simpler, and it has always been easy enough to get plenty of suitable wood to make them this way.
I, of course have no problem with doing things differently, and like the way it looks, especially on the Barnstormer necks; it seems to fit well with the vintage aircraft motif that I have worked into this model.
The only complaints I have gotten so far are that some people don’t like the way the stripes look on the face of the headstock, which I can understand.
Again, I happen to like it in this context, but for those who don’t, an overlay can be put on the face. The example I show here is on a one piece neck, but you get the idea:
Posted in lutherie, wood, work in progress
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new beginnings
This is where it starts.
Right here, and while chicken and egg theories are being debated into the ground, this little sapling will be growing into a red oak, possibly a majestic one, standing for hundreds of years. Maybe it will be cut down and turned into a barn that will endure the elements for another century, only to succumb to neglect and fall back to the earth yet again. Maybe then some crazy artist type will turn it into guitars and wonder what will become of them.
Probably not.
This particular specimen may be eaten by deer, crushed by a falling ancestor, or simply crowded out by its peers.
None of my concern, really; and if it does make it, I hope to be long gone by the time it pokes its crown through the canopy. But if I did have any say in the matter of its eventual fate, I would actually rather it lay on the ground and rot when the time comes, with nobody around to keep it from replenishing what is left of the soil on this land.
I would write a song about it, but I doubt I could do a better job than Matt Lindahl~
Posted in dismalia, flora, music, ruminations
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screech owl
This little screech owl took up residence in the rafters of our house last year around this time, and later on in the summer found a friend and disappeared. A few days ago, she showed up again in her old spot in the rafters, and we were all very delighted. This picture was taken through our bedroom window, about 12 feet away. She doesn’t seem to mind our presence, and serenades us with her whinnying song in the late evening and early morning.
This is one of the things that keeps me going when I get down and feel like giving up.
I don’t bother to wonder why or from whence such blessings are bestowed, but simply try to be there for them.
Posted in dismalia, fauna, ruminations
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