Archives
June 2008
June 03, 2008
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| The first coats of lacquer have cured so the Earthen Talladegas are ready to be colored. We always prepare the surface for color by applying a base coat of nitrocellulose lacquer to raise the grain and create "bite" for the finish. Our nitro is thin and it seeps down into the wood to provide adhesion. The first coat swells the grain and lifts any "fuzz" so that we can scuff it smooth when it dries. Then we put three more thin coats on, about an hour apart to allow the solvents to flash off. Then the whole thing cures for two days to make sure all the shrinking takes place before sanding, not after. In this shot, Todd is sanding the first coats on the third day. We call this operation "leveling" because it is really more about getting the surface of the paint flat than just sanding. He's using a 400 grit paper and a rubber block to get any peel out and give the color a perfectly flat surface to go down upon. |
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You can see the natural color of the earthen maple top as well as the mahogany back. By setting up the surface for color instead of staining directly into the wood, we're able to create a depth to our colors that come from the fact that they actually "float" over the wood. It makes the burst appear "3D" when it moves in the light, something a stained top won't do. We'll check back tomorrow to see Gary put the color on. See you then. | |
June 05, 2008
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Now that our Earthen Talladega guitars have been block sanded smooth, they are ready for shader, which is what we call the transparent lacquer that creates the color. When we built the run of twenty-five Earthen Studio guitars I asked Gary to come up with a new sunburst color that evoked the origins of the special wood we were using. After some discussion and testing, Gary came up with a color I liked. It had a hint of brown earth tone, while still capturing the vintage fade we are known for. Of course, we named it "Earthen Burst." | |
This time around, the opportunity to depart from the obvious use of the special color was overruled by my desire to create the other bookend to the series—so Earthen Burst it is. It's our intent to shelve the color after we finish these twenty-five Talladegas in order to give them even more of a special identity. One of the adjustments we made to the Earthen Talladega was to use Honduras mahogany for the body and neck. Because the Earthen maple has a bright snap to it, the maple neck of the Talladega would have emphasized just too much high end. The use of dense mahogany will offer balance. This creates a challenge to Gary, as the darker wood will require a reformulation of the shader for those parts in order to match the first run of limba guitars. Here's the shaded (colored) guitar hanging in the paint room. The masking tape has been removed from the sides of the guitar, but as you can see the burst color is still present over the binding on the face of the guitar. |
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The next step is for Gary to scrape the color off of the top, revealing the ivoroid binding. For this, he uses a little knife that he's made from pieces of cellulose and an xacto blade. The amount of blade that protrudes from the handle will determine the maximum amount of width that can be scraped. Because the thickness of the binding will vary slightly (we're talking about thousandths here) Gary will angle the blade when needed to reduce the width of his cut. The object here is for the color to come just to the edge of the binding in a clean, crisp line. The easy and quick way to do this is to leave an overlap. There's always a little, but to us that looks shoddy unless it's really close. When you inspect a guitar, look at how close the color's edge comes to the edge of the binding. That's a pretty good way to judge how much care has gone into the building. |
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Here's the result, ready to go back for some topcoats of clear. The lacquer goes on over the color, then it dries for two days before being block-sanded again. Then three more light coats before drying a final seven days. That's a total of fifteen days for applying the finish and drying. The last sanding will bring the lacquer down to a thickness of about .011" before it's buffed out. We'll come back for that later. |
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June 11, 2008
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My email inbox has been filling up with messages from Jack Blades who has nothing but raves for the Newport "Night Falcon" bass. Whew! Jack says the sound is thunderous, and the FOH tech is loving it too. Apparently the new config has rendered all Jack's previous basses obsolete, so we're talking about building a spare... ASAP. I'm thinking Orange with flames... what do you think? |
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Addendum 6/13/2008, email from Jack Blades: [Dude]
I am so glad they did.
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June 18, 2008
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Earlier in the week we gave a tour of our shop to a group of musicians who work day jobs selling guitars. As you might imagine, they were very interested, and excellent listeners too. Although they were here for a good long time, it occurred to me that it's impossible to even scratch the surface of what we do. This is never more apparent than when training an new member of our team, no matter how experienced they might be. Here's Todd explaining the nuance of pickup alignment to our newest "apprentice" Colin Green. Eager to learn, Colin is a Reberto Venn graduate (but don't hold that against him) and he's continuing his education with one of the best. Todd is a veteran of two decades in the guitar building business, and there's a lot of knowledge to download in this situation. It can be an overwhelming situation, being thrown into the deep end of the pool, but Todd knows how to encourage raw talent; so we'll leave them alone and see what's going on at the opposite end of the room. |
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On the body bench, Mike is applying multiple-ply binding to a Monaco. Here you can see the stepped channel for the inner and outer binding strips. Each layer is laid up separately which keeps them from distorting when bent around a tight corner like the horn of the cutaway. On this guitar, there will be a purfling of mother-of-pearl between the two thin black stripes, so for now, Mike fills the gap with a layer of teflon material. That keeps the gap uniform, and the strip can be removed after the main binding has cured. |
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After a day of curing, the filler strip is pulled out, and Mike can start to glue in the pearl pieces, one at a time. In this picture you can see the way it's laid up and taped snug to the body. The f-hole has already been bound with two pieces of ivoroid as well. This is going to be a beauty—we'll stop back in a few days to see the pearl going in. |
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June 20, 2008
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Today found Mark buffing and wiring one of the twenty five Earthen Talladegas. It's a good thing they're moving along, because we just got word from the NAMM show in Nashville that most of them were sold by mid-day. |
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Mark has already spent about three hours sanding the lacquer down to a fine grit—taking care to block all the surfaces flat with a hard pad. Then it takes him about an hour to do the final polishing. We use a 4 inch wide wheel that spins about 1100 rpm, with a fine abrasive compound. Then he'll move to a second set of wheels to glaze the finish and seal it. |
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After buffing, Mark shields the control cavity with a nickel-based conductive paint that we import from Belgium. It costs a ton, but it's the best there is—that's why we use it. Then it's over to the assembly bench for hardware (another hour) and onto the wiring bench to hook up the electrics. In this photo, Mark is stripping the old-school, cloth insulated pickup wire before making all the connections. The legendary Sprague "Orange Drop" tone cap is clearly visible on the soldering mask that protects the back of the instrument from tools and hot solder splatter. We're using lead-free solder to keep in line with worldwide environmental practices too. It won't be much longer before I can play-test this one and snap some photos to show here. |
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June 25, 2008
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If you've been following the construction of our twenty-five, Earthen Maple Talladega guitars you know we're getting to the final stages. Indeed, as soon as Mark was finished with number 22 I took it outside to snap some photos to share with all of you. I walked out the shop's back door and took a few steps towards the Farmington River that rushes past our lunch table. By the side of the cascading water, I gingerly placed the guitar next to a tree and fired off a few snapshots. As I peered through the viewfinder, I had the same thought that many of you will have after seeing these photos; how soon can I get one for myself? |
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Each one of these guitars is distinctly different. The unique grain and mineral streaking makes certain that you'll never mistake your guitar for any other. Everyone who has played them in our shop has remarked about the clear, crisp top end and warm bottom. The combination of the mineral-laced tops with a mahogany neck gives these twenty-five guitars a special tone. |
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Here's a nice touch, the individual series numbers are laser etched into the lacquer (but not the wood like the serial number) to protect and confirm the originality of the finish for future collectors. As much as I hate to see 'em go, I can't wait to hear from the new owners and hear the music that they make. |
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June 30, 2008
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With all the projects that we have going on at any given time, it's hard to spotlight all of them here. After all, we're guitar builders not webmasters. Here's one job that's been in the shop for a while. It's no secret that we've worked closely with the boys in Judas Priest for over two decades; every album and tour since 1984 has bristled with Hamer-tone. Since one of our readers asked, I'm going to jump the gun on a special post series that we've been holding close to our chest. | 
Back in the day... Glenn Tipton and Jol Dantzig in the studio during the recording of Judas Priest's "Turbo" album |
After talking to Glenn Tipton over the course of a few weeks, and receiving the basic idea for his new guitar, Dave set to work building a mahogany neck with a curly maple fingerboard. We've elected to use the old "six on a side" Hamer headstock shape, because it matches Glenn's other Hamers, and goes more with the feel of this guitar. |
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The scale is 24.75" and it calls for block inlays. We selected some nice chunks of "black" pearl and cut them into rectangles. Here, Tom has routed the pockets for the pearl and is gluing them in. |
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Then, based on the outline provided by Glenn, Mike starts to rough out the body from a mahogany blank. In this photo he's placed the neck over the body to get the cutaway, pickup and bridge locations locked in. We've collected all the parts we need, including a NOS (new old stock) original Kahler from the '80s. Mike will create templates for routing, and then do the pocketing on the pin router. There's a few bumps in the road, but we always figure it out in the end. Stay tuned for more... |
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