They're done!! (Well 2 of them anyways...)

I can't believe it's been almost three months since my last post! Things have been interesting since I finished school. I got a job assisting a mason that I worked through the month of June, but I wasn't quite built for the job and the guy I was working for was kind of a jerk so he let me go and didn't even pay me what he owed me. A lot has happened since then and I've been focusing on my job search lately, which I'm hoping will end soon. If anybody knows of any lutherie or woodworking jobs available around the Minneapolis/St Paul area, let me know. I've got one interview tomorrow and it is the first in my three weeks of job searching, but I do what I can... Enough about my life, and on to the guitars!!!

The Southeast Tech guitar show was on May 8th, and it was a great but stressful day. I had a couple of hours after gluing the bridge the day before to get the nut and saddle made, tuners installed, and bridge pin holes drilled, reamed, and slotted. To make a long story short, I got my guitar strung up about a half hour before the show and life was good. My parents also came down for the show, and I felt bad because I was too busy finishing the setup that I couldn't really show them around. The show went disaster free for everybody, and despite the fact that a couple of my fellow students had some bridges that were starting to come unglued, no bridges popped off of guitars. Although dreadnoughts are usually flatpicked, I decided to have Phil Heywood fingerpick my guitar in the show and it sounded great!

This is me describing my guitar:

And Phil Heywood playing it:
My dad holding my guitar with me in the background:I was exhausted...

My guitar in it's case on display at the show:
During the last two weeks in may, I took an advanced finishing course and put a lovely dyed red finish on my electric guitar. This course was pretty cool, and we learned about some other types of finishes commonly used in the industry like CAB Urethane and Polyester, as well as doing some really cool metal flake project boards, which I think I may end up making guitar shaped clocks out of... I'm fairly happy with how the finish turned out on the electric, but I'm wishing i would have paid more attention when sanding it because you can definitely see some sanding scratches under the lacquer. They aren't noticeable from more than a foot or so away and even so you have to look pretty carefully to notice. The thing is that I know that they're there and so I always see them. Grrr... I was also able to get my dreadnought buffed out and set up properly, and it now looks and plays beautiful in addition to sounding beautiful.

A nice shot of the body showing off the bearclaw in the top:
The end graft:

Back and sides:
And my bridge design:
It took me a couple of weeks to even start mounting hardware and a few more weeks to start wiring. I accidentally broke the plunger switch on the preamp when i was test fitting it before finishing the guitar, but LR Baggs sent me a new one free of charge and very promptly, so kudos to their customer service. It was kind of tough to get the old switch off of it, but once I finally did, it only took about 30 seconds to solder the new one in. A couple of Saturdays ago, I spent a solid 2 hours or so wiring the whole thing up and mounting the spring claw for the tremolo. Last weekend, I finally did a fret job, made a nut, installed the spring trees and tuner screws, installed the straplocks, and did a fairly thorough set up.

I must say that I am quite happy with how everything came together with the gold hardware, cocobolo fingerboard, red finish, and the flame on the neck. It all looks classy, even the diamonds on the fingerboard, which were a cover-up for a mistake. I also love how it sounds. I didn't have any radioshack .022 mfd capacitors, so I ordered a few of the Sprague Orange Drops off of ebay and installed one in the tone circuit. I'm not sure how much of an audible difference it makes, but it sure beats the .047 mfd that I had installed in the tone circuit temporarily. I love this guitar and have been playing it quite a bit more than the SG since I finished it. I was going for a tone similar to The Black Keys, and the hot golds paired with my Hot Rod Deluxe comes pretty close. Enough rambling about it, you wanna see pictures!

A couple of shots of the front and back of the headstock and neck:
And a couple of the body with all the lovely gold hardware:

And the front and back of the guitar as a whole:Oops, the holes in the tremolo cavity cover don't quite line up with the string holes in the tremolo block, so I guess I'll have to take it off to re-string. Grrr... I guess it's something to make sure I get right the next time.

Fraternal twins!

Part of the reason it took me so long to get assembled and set up is that I didn't have a good place to work, and I was just getting frustrated with working on the kitchen table, having to clear it off for dinner, and not being able to have my tools organized in any way. It turns out that my new house in Golden Valley just so happened to have a bench in the basement that just had a bunch of junk that nobody ever used on it. A few hours cleaning and organizing, and I now have a great place to work on guitars, complete with magnetic racks for chisels! It even came with a bench dog!

Here's a photo of my new workspace:
Bubba likes to lay on the cool basement floor underneath the bench while I work:
There's an empty room next to this bench and I'm hoping I may be able to fill it with power tools soon and start making some more guitars and finish the archtop eventually as well. I'll keep you posted...

Until next time.