Guitar Making Progress

[okiemaggie]

That is truly beautiful. Please keep posting updates. You are very talented.

 

[fireman32]

Nice. I bet that it will sound sweet when its finished.

 

[nofearfactor]

mahogany

I'm a nut for mahogany. Most of my gigging guitars are mahogany,its my favorite wood. (You are coming by your woods legally I presume? You know the FBI raided Gibson this past week checking into the use of rare illegal woods. A shame.)

Give John at All About Music a call in Owasso, maybe he can tell who you might call

Thanx. I do have good people to work on my stuff when I'm in KC or Des Moines where my bands are based and I do use a guy in Tulsa as well as I have always had backup gear for when any of my gear goes down,its just, the best guy in the area is gone. But thanx for the suggestion. Appreciate it.

Rick's passing is a big loss

I will miss calling and argueing with him. Nice civil friendly arguments about caps,tubes,rectifiers,etcetc.

Just two nights ago one of my amps he had worked on

A friend of mine in a local popular cover band rocks one of Ricks amps that he built.

I've heard some bad stories about the shop on Harvard

Hey,those guys have done stellar work for decades,but even they mess up some times. What happens there is,IMO, alot of old guys with vintage instruments are clogging the system with setups and repairs on gear theyre playing in the garage and in bedrooms. Then when a working musician like us needs something done today before a weekends worth of gigs or an upcoming mini tour then we're left scrambling to find other options. Just sayin.

 

[larkinmusic]

Hey,those guys have done stellar work for decades,but even they mess up some times. What happens there is,IMO, alot of old guys with vintage instruments are clogging the system with setups and repairs on gear theyre playing in the garage and in bedrooms. Then when a working musician like us needs something done today before a weekends worth of gigs or an upcoming mini tour then we're left scrambling to find other options. Just sayin.

I'm not trying to bad mouth those guys. (I should have worded that differently.)
I've always been told they do great work, they're just slow sometimes. I don't even know if there is any other option in Tulsa. I think all of the guitar stores in Tulsa farm out all of that type of work to them.

.

Sorry hi-jack over now.

 

[Istandalone]

very nice!!

 

[AKguy1985]

nice work that looks good

 

[K-Man]

Thanks for the kind words everyone - much appreciated.

At the same time that I've been learning how to make the guitar, I've been learning how to use the tools utilized. So, in some respects, it's been slowing the progress just slightly.

Last night I got the fret wire on, smoothed the edges, and the bridge set in place temporarily. Then spent the rest of the class working on getting the neck set properly. Looks like I'll have just a small amount of work left there in the next class. Then I should be finishing up the shaping of the neck, putting the tuners on, and be able to string her up for a test run. I'll then inlay the maker's mark, and do the final sanding. Then we'll shoot the finish. I'm still bouncing around in that regard - not quite sure how much stain/shade of color to put on. I've seen some awesome finishes and have liked nearly every one of them. I saw a guitar last night that was all mahogany, and it was just amazing. The figure in the wood reminded me a lot of Tiger Myrtle. There's just too many choices for finish.

 

[[email protected]]

Now we need more pics...

Have the neck and body had their meeting yet? I would leave the hog it's natural color and go with a clear finish, but that's just me. Are you going with a gloss or a satin on the back and sides, and what type of finish are you going to go with? Looks like you are having a good time and the work so far looks very nice.

Pat

 

[K-Man]

I was able to put the neck on last night. I have some sanding to do to get it down flush on the body - not much though.

With the stain I will probably darken it just a tad. The mahogany one I saw last night was much darker and I really liked that. I doubt I'll go that dark, as I lean more towards keeping as close to the original as I can. The finish will be a gloss finish, sanded to at least 1500 grit, and then buffed.

I'm also making a custom wood pickguard for it. I have already made one from the lacewood. This next one will be from the gabon ebony, which is a very black ebony. Then I'll groove a line around the border and fill it with genuine ivory.

I've also made a couple of playing picks - one from the lacewood and one from genuine ivory. Here's a pic:

I plan on offering the custom wood pickguards and playing picks through our website. I've already received an order for a playing pick made from the ivory. I'll also be offering custom guitar straps. We now have access to a greater number of exotic skins, to include giraffe, zebra, fox, beaver, to name but a few. With those offerings, I hope to put us in a niche marketplace with respect to the accessories.

 

[onearmedman]

Cool! Building my own is for sure on my "bucket list", but so far I've only done modding and fix a neck crack on my plastic Innovo III that two shops would not touch since it's not wood.
I was just googling today for info on using osage orange as a tonewood,and it has been done,but it sounds like it would be too hard to be practical.