Calling Colin...

Bit of an unusual post here...

If Colin Owen is reading this, your P bass body is finished but the phone number you gave me is missing a digit so I can't get in touch to let you know!

Give me a ring when you see this... if you see it, or if anyone knows Colin please let him know!

Rich

Well done Bob

A big congratulations to Bob who, after more years than he cares to remember, has been coming to my workshop to build his own guitar and here are the fruits of his labour. Sitka soundboard, reclaimed mahogany back, sides and neck, ebony bridge, fingerboard, headstock veneer and binding.

The mahogany was originally a cupboard door from an old chest that was being thrown out. Turns out is was  a beautiful piece of 'hog that Bob had resawn at a local joinery (who have a bigger and better bandsaw than me) and voila... Pretty good no?

Ok, so I haven't updated this blog in a while but the two guitars are finished and another is well on it's way...

Here's the first;

A 12 fret Cilgerran in Carpathian spruce and Cocobolo rosewood... and 6.5 metres of abalone purfling!! Its tone is opening up nicely. It already has the clarity and resonance you'd expect from rosewood and spruce  with great balance of tones... and it's sparkly.

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that bling!

On to to the Oxwich. This one is already winging it's way across Europe to it's new home in Austria. The combination of Cedar and Walnut makes for a beautiful picker which has more volume than you'd expect from such a wee beastie.

There's something about 12 fret guitars that I absolutely love. Maybe its the balance, the body length, the bridge placement, but it just works really well... In my opinion anyway.

On to the next.

Another Oxwich, this time in Sitka pruce and Walnut. Built using native woods where possible, the guitar is Celtic themed, so I am using my knotwork rosette and coupling it with a very ornate set of purfling from Petros guitars. The neck is sycamore, fingerboard is bog oak, binding is oak and the headstock veneer is a bookmatched piece of Burl Yew from a local churchyard.

This guitar will also have some Welsh script etched with a laser cutter onto the soundboard thanks to Steph at http://www.stephaniedaviesdesigns.co.uk/ who does great work and also makes my knotwork rosettes and wooden logos

My 3 Minutes of fame....

I've finally got around to uploading the snippet featuring me on Fishlock's Wales back in April. The program was all about being left handed, the oppression in Victorian education, how the brain functions differently and how a left handed guitar is different. I think it was a happy coincidence that I am a leftie too!

If anyone is interested, the guitar I'm playing at the beginning is a European spruce and Mahogany Cilgerran and the tune I'm murdering is Jefferson airplane's 'Embryonic Journey'

Thanks to Bob for recording the show for me.

Ok, the two guitars are coming along together, the bodies are all but done and the binding is coming along on the cilgerran.


Binding on the Oxwich is figured maple with purfling around the edges and soundboard

The binding on the Cilgerran is Boxwood with purfling between it and the abalone and the abalone and the back, sides or soundboard... the mitre joints, oh the mitre joints!! Hundreds of them, all hand cut at different and varying angles, I'm starting to see double.

Necks next, as well as a couple of full body shots

Lovely pair...

I've decided to build my next two guitars in tandem. Different body shapes, so each can spend time in its own mould but it'll be easier to make a batch of braces, do a lot of thicknessing etc, not to mention having less dust over a long period to clean up. That's the idea anyway.

 The first is a Cilgerran 12 fret. The soundboard is Carpathian spruce with back and sides of Cocobolo. For those of you who are interested, Carpathian spruce Picea Abies is the same as German, Italian, Swiss.... any European Spruce but it grows in the Carpathian mountains in Eastern Europe. It is typically quite slow growing, showing tight grain lines that we like although heavy logging by the Soviets means that often the rings are rather wide at the edges of the board. Not so with this piece, very nice grain with little runout, lots of cross silking and a lovely tap tone already. Not content with beautiful tonewoods, the future owner of this guitar has specified abalone trim galore; around the soundhole, around the edge of the soundboard, around the back, along the binding on the sides (top and bottom), around the heel of the guitar, around the end fillet and around the fingerboard extension over the soundboard, not to mention an ornate inlay on the headstock and fingerboard markers... I think that's everything. The end result will be my take on Martin's 45 range of guitars. It'll be a thing of beauty when finished!

Scraping down the marquetry backstrip

The first bit of pearl on the guitar

Braces all glued on, ready for voicing

 Next up is an Oxwich parlour in Walnut, I love the size and sound of parlour guitars and Walnut, particularly Claro Walnut is my favourite wood for back and sides, if nothing else, then for the lovely woody smell. The wood has a great tone as an added bonus, plus it looks great!

The soundboard is a really nice piece of Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata for those into their Romans) that I have had in stock for a little while waiting for the right opportunity

This month I was also fortunate enough to be a finalist in two categories in the Monmouthshire business awards in the young entrepreneur and best rural enterprise categories. Although I didn't win, Sammie and I had a very nice evening eating delicious food at the glitzy awards ceremony and dinner at the Angel hotel in Abergavenny. Its great to see so many businesses doing well in our (well, my) neck of the woods.

Ladies and gentleman- The Thumb buster!

Right, the harp guitar is all finished and at it's new home. Instead of putting up pictures of it outside my workshop, this time I can (hopefully) link to a video of it in action played by Paul Brett, who's idea and inspiration it was to get this thing up and running... again, the original harp guitar that this monster is based on dated from the 1890s and the concept hasn't been taken up since

It'll be on Paul's stand at the London Acoustic Guitar Show if you fancy giving it a try and I'll be hanging around too, so come and say hi!