Return of the Guitar Building!

[mattia]

I've been busy. Still am, really. Internships, translation, more internships, getting properly settled in a new house, internships...you get the picture. Part of the 'getting settled' was moving a whole bunch of wood, tools, books and DVDs from a tiny room in Amsterdam (which clearly had some sort of quantum properties, given the amount of stuff

Comments

[hackerguitar]

So glad that you've got your shop together. Mine's been more or less entirely together for about a year now, and once I make room (e.g., put walls on the outside area so I can put some shelves in and store wood and such there), the shop will be Just PerfectTM.

Liking the black walnut set very much. If you need more, now that I can resaw, just let me know. It's not like it's too much difficulty to get you some choice juglans hindsii or juglans californica. And it won't be steamed, either, so the light-colored streaks will be visible!

[hackerguitar]

Y'know, I think I will very, very much take you up on that offer at some point in the not too distant future. The one regret I have about Walnut is that almost all of the stuff I have is steamed, and thus not nearly as nice/interesting as it could be.

Let me know if you'd like payment in Euro spruce tops or whatnot. I'm sure something could be arranged ;)

[hackerguitar]

Hmm. Euro spruce tops....well, yes, that's an entirely reasonable medium of exchange, as long as your Bank of Wood accepts walnut in various denominations.

;-)

I'll send some photos as I have them. The unsteamed stuff is usually pretty gorgeous, and the sap just explodes with color.

I'm finishing up a frame-and-panel cabinet of black acacia (think koa but more gold) with figured walnut panels, and a little orange shellac has popped the wild grain in the walnut just tremendously...

[ninio]

mooie foto's. heerlijk om nu zoveel meer ruimte te hebben!

[georgesbataille]

I like the look of that archtop electric thingy. What pickups do you plan to use with it? My one comment though is that with a Spruce top be prepared for lots of feedback at high volume (though maybe that's not a bad thing?)

[mattia]

The plan is actually to wind my own humbuckers; have all the parts, just need to put together a winder (have parts for that, too) and give it a shot. Vintage-y type specs, nothing high output and the like.

I've loosley based the archtop electric on a model a friend/guitar builder in the US (David Myka) makes, and he hasn't had extreme problems with feedback. Of course, this isn't really a guitar designed for high-gain thrash metal, and I'm leaving the top on the thick side (7mm center, 5mm closer to the edges, and any recurve will be purely aesthetic given the thickness of the sides). I'm curious to see how it'll sound, though; I've got several more spruce archtop wedges, some of which will no doubt become actual archtops (one day), but I may build myself something like this guitar with a more modern-esque single soundhole design. Some day. Eventually. After I've built the other 7 guitars I want to/need to build first.

[georgesbataille]

I just remember this archtop with a pine top i built which i installed a humbucker in and it just howled away at anything other than low volume. Admittedly, it had a much larger body. I built it as an acoustic. Yours has a much smaller air chamber and a thick back and top so i guess feedback may not be a problem. It looks like it will be a lovely guitar btw.

[immortalradical]

The workshop's looking good, Mr V - I am deeply impressed. Excited to see a photo of the walnut, but mostly that archtop is looking very fine.

[jem7v]

You lucky bastard, having all that wood and space to work in...

The electrics I built this year turned out mostly pretty well. One has a Wilkinson tremolo and I'm not completely sold on it... it gave me some trouble when I was trying to get it to fit nicely in the tremolo cavity. But the other one is happy. I guess I should post the final pics on my LJ, but I've just been so laaaaaazy...