Arizona Happenings

Some shots of what we've been up to here in beautiful Arizona...

Getting back to our elementary school roots: Thursday night kickball!!!

Two weeks ago we drove 60 miles north to Rock Springs, AZ in search of some real cowboys playing their vintage Gretsch guitars. Here's what we found:

Still at it after all these years, Cecil and the Boys:

A few weeks back, we caught Dave Gonzalez (in blue) at the Rhythm Room with his new band, The Stone River Boys. Helluva show!!! ... and a helluva nice guy:

We hiked up South Mountain last Sunday. Carolyn and Joe taking photos on the way to the summit:

Carolyn and Joe climbing:

That's me standing on top of that there rock:

Oogah Boogah Joe:

Me and a cactus:

And a couple shots from school today: as I was carving out the top braces for the acoustic, I started getting these great little curly wooden shavings... no biggie but a cool little something that happens along the way to building a beautiful instrument.

Still haven't gotten the electric in the spray booth but I'm thinking this thing is gonna look great when it is done. I spent a weekend and a day & 1/2 at school finish sanding the guitar (removing the big n' ugly scars in the wood), an absolutely crucial and unglamorous step but hopefully one that will prove worthwhile when this thing is lacquered...

Top, Back, Sides and Glue!

Finished gluing in all the soundboard braces this morning. Here's the whole set: Indian rosewood back (left) and sides (lying in front in their mold) and the X-braced spruce top (right):

Also... finally got my electric neck glued into the body. This crucial joint sits for 24 hours before removing the clamps. We'll get a full look tomorrow afternoon! Some different angles on the clamping process:

Glue n' Braces

Here's a couple shots of my acoustic top with the lower face braces and bridge plate gluing in. The top sits on a metal dish carved to a 30 foot radius while the braced are glued to it. Once all the braces are glued in, the top and back of the acoustic retain their radiused shapes. All the braces are radius sanded on the side that are glued down to ensure a tight fit between the skeletal brace structure and the soundboard (or top). This process strengthens the guitar and actually puts stress on the top. The top, probably the most important factor in the sound of an acoustic, is stressed this way to help in sound projection. The sides and back basically serve as rigid walls to the top, akin to a drum.

Those blue, white and orange sticks are 'go bars': basically flexible kite rods that exert pressure on the top while the braces are being glued in.

Hank Thompson

I became aware of this fella when I happened to see one of his cd's in the front bin at J& R Music World in Manhattan. I used to roam through there when I had a job as a dog walker in the neighborhood. The second floor had all the goodies: blues, jazz and country. I spotted a 'best of' collection of Hank Thompson and bought it on the spot simply because he was posing with his heavily customized Gibson Super 400 on the cover. I thought, "if he's got that great a taste in guitars, he's got to be good." Sure enough... that was my introduction to the legendary country singer. A long time musical partner with Merle Travis, Hank brought a bit more of a 'pop' feel to the western swing sound of the late 40's/early 50's.

Here's a dy-no-mite video of Hank doing his hit, "Whoa Sailor," complete with transitional and iconic instruments in the background. Aside from Hank's Super 400, there's a Bigsby triple neck pedal steel, a Fender electric bass and what looks to be another Gibson Super 400, played by the band's rhythm guitarist. I love this clip simply for the fact that it captures Hank's music in a transistional phase: this clip is from the early 60's, a time when Western Swing was not the cutting edge sound it once was. Nevertheless, here's Hank's big band, complete with dueling fiddles and secondary electric archtop guitar, hangover elements of the 40's/50's. Note the electric Fender bass being plucked in the background, an indication of Hank's adoption of modern technology into his band. The electric bass is a compact instrument able to pump out a loud and commanding sound without taking up the precious stage real estate once occupied by an upright bass. The design of Fender's Precision & Jazz basses (basically a larger Telecaster) made it easy for guitar players to make the switch to bass whereas upright required its own technique.

Kerfing & Binding

Above: the main drag down the R-V lot. Outdoor woodshop area on the left behind the trees. It's rustic but it works.

Man oh man... I'm bushed. Bring on the weekend! Lots of happenings around R-V this week. Some photos: Here are my acoustic sides in their mold. We glued in the kerfing (those strips of slotted wood around the edges) Thursday. Kerfing serves to reinforce the gluing surface between the rosewood acoustic sides and the top and back. Kinda tricky stuff as it's very flimsy when you're gluing it in. It just wants to snap apart. Glued and clamped in:

Kerfing finished:

Today I bound my electric body. Below is the body with binding channel routed into the top edge and tortoise binding strips laying across it.

Next, I ran some low tack tape around the perimeter of the body to get an exact measurement for the length of binding needed. Binding comes in 54" strips and I just made it under that. You don't want to glue in 95% of the binding and get to the end to realize you're an inch short! If the perimeter of your guitar is longer than 54" you just run two strips up the sides, starting from the center seem at the bottom of the body.

Finally, squeeze glue into the channel and tape the bejesus outta that thing to press and hold the binding into place. Everything seems to have worked out. The trickiest part is going around those sharp corners on the cutaway side. Using a heat gun, you can warm up the binding to finesse it into place but too much heat and *poof*! Up in smoke... Binding is highly flammable so watch out.

Below, another angle. You can see the holes drilled from the neck pocket down into the pickup cavities necessary to run the wiring harness. The last bit of tortoise binding sticks out on the right side:

Tuners Drilled

Another amazing day in Phoenix. The weather is incredible... this winter is going to be good.

Quick update... one of the many crucial & final steps in prepping the guitar for the spray booth next week. Here's the headstock with tuner holes drilled:

At this point, all of the necessary holes have been drilled and routed. The next big step is gluing the neck to the body. Some of the other students who are doing a Fender bolt-on style neck got their instruments together today. Pretty cool stuff!

The Dead Weather

Jack White has his head in the right place.

Everyone should witness this video for "I Cut Like A Buffalo," the single from his latest project, The Dead Weather:

Control cavities routed

Today I routed the control cavities for my electric guitar. While it may not seem like much, there is a fair amount of prep and planning that goes into these routing procedures. It's my perception that much of guitar building involves the prep and pre-planning ie. setting up jigs and machinery (in this case accurately routing these cavities to within 1 thousandth of an inch) versus actually executing the task at hand. Because of this, many builders work in batches, producing a group of instruments at a time and executing each step of he building process with groups of guitars-to-be as opposed to setting up each machine or jig one at a time.

It's all about efficiency.

As I've mentioned, I'm also currently building an acoustic guitar but at this point, much of that work simply doesn't translate that well to blog-form. Right now we're carving the internal bracing structure and working on the body of the instrument. I would say we're about a week away from gluing up the entire body: back, sides and soundboard.

Photo of the back of the electric body and the neck. The top right is the 3 way pickup selector and the bottom left is the control cavity for the master volume and tone. Yeah... that headstock looks big! Chock it up to camera angle and the influence of D'Angelico and Ren & Stimpy/Björk animator, John K.

Headstock Inlay

Finished up my headstock inlay for the electric today:

Coming together...

Today I finished carving out the headstock on my electric guitar. I'm pretty happy with it! The neck shape is akin to a nice meaty 50s Tele but not crazy fat like those 'Louisville Slugger' necks. Neck carving is a satisfying experience, time consuming... but sooooo fulfilling. You basically clamp the roughed out 2x4-like neck blank in a vice and have at it with a rasp, constantly stopping to make careful measurements and shaping it to your liking. Carving the neck is a big leap towards seeing the instrument in its final form and is a major factor in the mojo of the guitar. A well shaped neck can inspire the player while an uncomfortable one can kill any desire to play the instrument. I also routed the body for two Lollar P-90 pickups. By next Friday we'll have all the wood work done, neck glued to the body and ready for the spray booth the following Monday.