Derelict

I know, I know....I left you all hanging.

After a whole bunch of stress, sweat and tears, I am finally able to claim that I have two guitars that I can 100% claim as mine, from conception, to raw slabs of wood, to finished, shiny instruments. It was a process, to say the least, and I wouldn't have changed this for anything.

Things have been such a whirlwind from when I had last posted, that looking back on my camera, I have 3 weeks of construction photos, pictures from my internship in Des Moines from over the summer, before I even have nice quality pictures of my finished guitars...and then there's all of the stuff I'm doing for school this time around...It is over 70 pictures.  For those of you that follow me on the Faceplace, a lot of this stuff has come across my news feed already.

You have been warned.

Right, so...I will try and categorize this stuff the best I can. For starters, these are examples of finishing class projects I was required to complete so that I would become familiar with the process of spraying a finish onto my (as of this point in the first year class) unfinished guitars.

We start with sunbursts, which is a fancy term for applying a finish in a gradient from one color to the other, most typically seen below as a lighter color in the middle towards a darker edge. This isn't always the style or color (silverburst, reverse burst, redburst, etc.) but there are two techniques:

Sprayed sunburst

hand applied sunburst

Hand applied sunbursts are done with a cloth saturated with dye and carefully blended until you arrive are the desired result. Sprayed sunbursts use an aerosol dye to achieve the transition effect (they also look better in my opinion).

We also practiced various buffing techniques on practice boards. This is a gloss buffed out using automotive foam pads you chuck into a hand drill.

 

 

This is a board buffed out using a professional buffing wheel set up.

 This is an example of a touch up technique called a burn in. You use a heated iron to melt colored lacquer into the damaged area, to which you then level to the surrounding area, paint in any necessary grain lines, and then polish out so that the repair is theoretically invisible when you are done. It is a tricky thing to get down.

burn in station

Alrighty, now that that stuff is out of the way, I can now walk you through the final stages of my guitar builds. I'll tackle the electric guitar first, then the acoustic, and then I promise I will show you the super glossy final pictures.

The slab with frets. Before I routed anything.

Everything routed out and ready for carving.

Laying out the contour curves.

One horn carved out. There was a lot of geometry that went into this.

Body contours. I definitely bit off a bit more than I could chew for my first real wood carving task.

Vulture inlay installed on the headstock. For whatever reason, I drop and break every inlay piece I do.

Prep sanded and ready for finish.

After 6 hours of sanding off pore filler, I went ahead and sprayed my take on the Gibson cherry red. My instructor wanted my recipe very badly.

Acoustic:

Due to how the schedule laid out/how thick I sprayed my build coats of finish, I didn't have the time to do a complete level sand and spray reduced lacquer coats. So for the end of year guitar show, my guitar had the finish texture of an orange peel. Bummer. However, I had signed up to do an extra finishing lab (where I was able to do my Gibson red), wherein I had the time to level sand and spray those extra coats on my acoustic...everything worked itself out.

Starting the prep sanding process. BONUS: feet.

Prep sanding: COMPLETE

Vinyl sealer/ drop fill any missed areas

At this point in the process, we smear on an oil based pore filler (essentially fancy mud) which we pack down into the pores of the wood and sand away the excess, leaving a smooth flat surface, conducive to achieving those ulta-shiny guitars we are all accustomed to seeing. It is a very messy and time sensitive process, so I don't have any pictures of those steps.

 After a bunch of clear coats of lacquer (and that level sand/reduced coats process) we prepared our guitars to receive our bridges that we designed and shaped from slabs of wood (Madagascar rosewood in my case). This involves very careful planning and some lacquer scraping so that when we glue the bridges in place, They are in the right spot and don't go anywhere.

Awaiting the final setup, nut, saddle and strings.

And here she is. My first Silver Fern Guitar ("Amelia" to me) 

• Adriondack Spruce top
• Padauk Back/sides
• Honduran Mahogany Neck
• Mexican Cocobolo fingerboard
• Madagasgar Rosewood Bridge/headcap
• Larson Brothers style bracing
• gold hardware, bone nut/saddle/bridge pins
• Abalone fern headstock inlay

BONUS VIDEO/AUDIO OF THE ACOUSTIC (its filmed vertically, I know, I was trying to be inconspicuous while filming, and please excuse my dust lung coughing)

AND THE ELECTRIC (SORRY NO A/V) I don't have a good method of recording it:
It is my take on the Derek Trucks Signature Gibson SG. It is a simply killer blues machine that can do other genres really well, too.

• solid 1pc/2pc (had to cut one piece in half and re-glue it because the jointer is too narrow) African Mahogany body
• Honduran Mahogany neck
• Ebony Headcap with M.O.P. Vulture inlay
• bound fingerboard
• Gotoh turnkey tuners
• Gibson '57 Classic Pickups
• 2 volume (500k linear) / 2 tone (500k audio)
• 3 way toggle
• Tonepros Locking classic tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece
• Vibrola cover

That will be it for now; I still have to cover my summer in an actual repair shop, as well as all of the crap I've done thus far in my first month as a 2nd year Guitar Program student. STAY TUNED. I promise it won't be as long between posts.