#020 - The Electric Boog-a-Lou

So Lou got home from his tour a day earlier than I expected, so I pulled an all nighter to get this thing ready for him.  Looks and sounds pretty damn good if you ask me.

Here's the specs:

• Chambered/semi-hollow red oak core body, shape based on Gibson L-00, and Lou's resonator
• Quartersawn curly red oak top and back
• 3 piece quartersawn curly red oak neck
• 25" scale ebony fretboard, 17 frets, 12" radius
• Lindy Fralin P90 pickups, 10% underwound neck
• Gotoh Tune-o-matic bridge with custom walnut base
• 1960's Kingston trapeze tailpiece
• Vintage radio knobs
• Stewart Macdonald classical tuning pegs

#020 - Electric BoogaLou

Got the top and back on now, and made the access panel for the electronics.  Just need to route the neck pocket, pickup holes, and round off the edges.  After that, drill the holes for the pots, switch, jack, and then stain it.

Since some people like to give me shit about using a lot of clamps...

#020 - Electric BoogaLou

So now Lou has the electric bug again and has tasked me with designing and building him a solidbody electric.  I made up several designs, and he chose the one that was the exact shape of his resonator.  We immediately started gathering materials, and after some discussion about woods that are easy to "antique", I convinced him that oak is the way to go.

We made a trip to the local hardwood lumberyard last sunday, picked out some 6/4 red oak for the core, and a nice highly figured quartersawn red oak board to have resawn to bookmatch for the top and back.  After we got back, we ordered some custom Lindy Frailin P-90s, and an Ebony fretboard.  Been getting as much as I can done each day, almost ready to glue the top and back on.  Here's some pics.

Milling out the core.  Had to do a lot of it by hand, i need a bigger drill press.

Marking off the hollow area so I can make an access panel for the electronics.

weighs like 7 pounds less now.

Ebony 25" scale, 12" radius

Stay tuned for more updates.

#019 - Soprano Ukulele

Got the neck on, bridge on, and everything sanded today.  Just gotta order some tuners now and make a nut, and put the finish on it now.  The neck is actually darker than it appears, the mineral spirits just dried up by the time I shot the pic.

Yamaha 12 string repair/overhaul

About 6 weeks ago, I had this 70's yamaha come in with a partially shattered back, and in desperate need of a neck reset.  It had all the classic signs of needing the neck angle adjusted, almost no frets left, saddle shaved down to almost nothing, nut shaved down, and still super low action.  The back was cracked horizontally across the tail block area, and taped together with medical tape, so I recommended that the back be replaced.

 I forgot to take pics before removing the back...

Little did I know, this wasn't the entirety of its problems.  Once I got the back off, I discovered that it only had half of a tailblock.  Where it went?  No idea.

After getting it apart, I had to repair the tailblock, and then I went to work on the neck.  The neck was unlike anything I have seen before, I'm not sure if this was a factory thing, or someone did a terrible job resetting it before, but the neck was epoxied on with dowels and biscuits.  I managed to get it partially loose via steaming, but had to cut through the dowels and splines that were in there to get it off all the way.  Once those were gotten rid of, I reattached the neck with a tenon and bolt.

The back was the easiest part, got a nice bookmatched mahogany set, and matched the stain as best I could.  I also went from 4 braces to 5 to give it some extra protection from previous hulk smashes.  Had to putty a few areas where the old binding chipped the finish coming off and where the neck removal pulled some finish chips with it, but while it isn't the prettiest job i've done, its solid as hell. Strung it up this morning, and god damn this fucker is loud and bright.  

Overall, I'm very happy with my results.  I wish the guitar would have cooperated a little more so I wouldn't have had to putty some things, and wish I could have gotten it done like a month ago, but we've had a family situation going on that took priority over work. 

#014 - Lou Shields Resonator

Finished her up today so Lou could take it with him to the Juke Joint Festival in Mississippi this weekend.

Specs:

-Highly figured Claro Walnut neck, back, and sides
-Flamed Maple top
-Gretsch spider cone
-Walnut bridge
-Dual piezo pickups
-25.75" scale ebony fretboard with steel side markers
-Stewart Macdonald vintage tuners
-1/4x1/2" steel neck reinforcement
-Ebony nut
-One of a kind hand made cover plate by Ryan Fielding of Paragon Customs

Acoustic Repair/Plate jointing jig

I got a 12 string Yamaha acoustic in for a back replacement, neck reset, and refret.  It looked like the guitar got thrown against a wall or something.  The back is cracked in a place where gluing it is not an option, so it was recommended that the whole back get replaced.  I found a good set of quartersawn Honduras Mahogany for it, but the supplier hadn't put an edge on it.  These pieces are a little thinner than I typically get, so I wasn't able to put them through an electric jointer/planer.  Don't want to risk them shattering themselves, so I made up a little jig I learned about from a PBS show that uses mostly amish style woodworking techniques.

The idea is to use a level with sandpaper glued to it to slowly flatten the edges for joining in the middle.  I just used the flattest pieces of scrap wood I have for holding the wood down and keeping the sanding beam level.  Takes a while to dial in the edge, but you get super clean results with it.

I'll post up pics of the guitar later, my camera battery died right after snapping these 3.

#014 - Lou Shields Resonator - Clamps off

Took the clamps off and sanded and filled and sanded some areas.  Wiped it down with thinner to clean up the dust and show what it'll look like with the finish on.

#014 - Lou Shields Resonator - Almost time for the finish.

Did some fine tuning on the tenon to get it to fit properly, and also added a walnut shim under the floating part of the fretboard for some extra support.  Got the whole thing gluing up in my shop vise and makeshift neck jig right now.

as usual, my work area is a mess.  anyone wanna donate a cabinet of some sort for my tools?  heh

#014 - Lou Shields Resonator Headstock

I can't remember if I wrote about it, but I stopped by Specimen to get more binding on Friday night, finished the back on saturday while Regan napped.  Today I got the headstock slotted and branded.  Here's the pics:

Tomorrow I'm hoping on getting the whole thing assembled, and the I have a couple spots on the back that I need to fill.  Had a couple small chipouts while scraping the bindings down, but its not a huge deal, got some grain filling epoxy today for that.  Stay tuned.

#014 - Lou Shields Resonator update #2

So Regan's cousin came over to play and I had time to get a little more done.  Since its -284 fuckin degrees outside, I had to figure something out so I could work inside and not make such a mess.  My solution?  Duct tape a vacuum hose to my router.  I got the top bound, but realized I told lou to order 2 strips instead of 4, plus I ran out of tape.  I'll have to go pick up more of both tomorrow.  Here's a few pics for now.

#014 - Lou Shields Resonator Sound holes

Regan is upstairs with her grandparents right now, so I took advantage of the situation and got Lou's soundholes cut out.  They still need a little cleaning up to try and get them a little more mirrored, but they came out better than I expected.  When he first gave me the drawing, I thought it would be a nightmare, but he allowed me to simplify it slightly to account for the dremel bit.