My favourite luthier

If inspiration was needed, I certainly found it here! Rick Toone makes some of the most amazing guitars I have ever seen. His way of combining different shades and finishes of woods, and the attention to detail payed to the hardware and technology, is unique. I hope that someday I might have the skill to make works of art like these.

3 prototypes of the fret board that have been made from the new mould. Needs a little work, but they getting better

So, what can be said...well, hopefully im back with avengence. I think mobile blogging is the way to go, this being the first postr sent from my phone.

Any way, about the image. I've been doing allot of experimenting with carbon fiber. my plan at the mo is to build a carbon fiber guitar. I know that sounds rediculous, but its actually working...so far. I have made a mould of the fretboard, and have made a couple prototypes.

More later...

Drilling and Joining

I clamp...drill... then glued.....oh and put the dowel rods in then clamp for 8 hours to join

Plaining the wood

Last night... or sometime in the weee... hour of this morning i did some plaining to flatten the faces of the wood that i am joining together. i used a combination of a rasping plane, and a belt sander.
It seems to be working, even if it is taking a while.

Neck swap! and part scavenge

These are two guitars that belong to a friend of mine. The neck of the one on the left has worped so the plan is to take the neck from the one on the right and put it on the one on the left. Then hopefully my friend will let me use a couple of the left over parts for my guitar.

Here's a pic of the spilt wood. Mirroring the pattern for strength

The start

This is a pic of the mahogany that I am using to build my guitar.
I have two pieces that are each just over a meter long. The idea is to split the wood down the center and open it up to mirror the pattern. This
will give it streagnth and stop it from worping, as the grain will curve in opposite directions.

The guitar

The past two weeks have been hectic! Between working on my research and planing out the guitar that i am building, i have'nt had much time to share it all with you.

Something that i started on this last week is the design for an electric guitar. I decided that its something i've always wanted to do, and i could use my jewellery skills to make the components ("you gotta have skills") Ha Ha

These are some of the drawings that i have been playing with. I have got hold of a piece of mahogany which i am using for the major part of the body. Part of the bottom corner will be made from a perspex box construction, so that the components can be visible, and so i can equip it with LED's. I want to give it matt white finish, i'm sort of going for that ipod look. This week i'll be glueing the body together, so i'll be sure to put up picks of that.