more sketches

sketch

Another model that starts to look like something... For a while now I've been busy with the lower horn - that should be curved enough to allow playing sitting with a high neck (this position usual in classical guitar is now more en more used by electric players, under the influence of some metalheads) but breaks the line if it stays in backward position. I've tried a double horn before, this is another proposal.
I like the 'penguin' finish - white body and black pickguard and gears -, like my Rickenbacker 620 white.

more sketches

work in progress

As I started cutting the pickup cavity, I decided to get another pickup and left the thing unfinished. I then ordered a dual-rail single humbucker that has the big advantage to be splitable (it's a 6-string one but in the neck position it should fit a 7-string). The aluminium plate will hide the wrong cut once it's properly modified...

Also the model that I made out of cardboard was thin and didn't reveal that the back of the lower horn is somehow a little bit bothering to access the high notes, so I will modify it too... But I don't shred so it's not a big issue - this part of the neck I use mostly with a bottleneck.

work in progress

7-string headstock

Today, I've been working on the aluminium plated headstock of my 7-string project. Since I modified the Ibanez copy design of the headstock by making it narrower, I decided to reinforce and rigidify it with aluminium - like the front of the guitar. I was not sure about the all thing and really not about the black tuners on the alu plate but I do like the result. Will make the trussrod cover out of alu too, and will glue the alu plate on the wood, but I don't know what kind of glue I should use.

Also started to file the body in shape but I should cut soon the neck socket - it's the main challenge, if I make a mistake I can throw what I did so far and start again from zero. But I've been reading some good things about glued birchwood for guitars that make me thing that I made the right choice.

new Kawai Aquarius blog

I just started a side blog about the Kawai Aquarius - that is not only my first guitar but a very honorable and underrated one, about which it is quite difficult to find any information since Kawai stopped guitar production in the late 80s.

I managed to put on this blog scans of old Kawai catalogues of the late 70s / early 80s - I think that they were not accessible online before and hope that this will be useful for someone.

So you are welcome to visit this blog of course, but also to contribute if you've been or are a Kawai Aquarius owner or player and have pictures, stories, recordings, videos, etc. that you can share with the web.

more sketches

more sketches

more color variations

In my previous color variations post, I strangely forgot 'transparent black' - it's actually the finish I intend to do for my guitar projects... Also someone suggested 'seafoam green', I didn't think I'd like it but I wanted top check so there it is... Still not convinced but I acknowledge it as a honorable finish.

Jaguar user's manual

Though I play my Fender Jaguar HH for a few months already, I had not so far managed to really understand what all these switches and knobs are really about (I just found my right setting and stuck to it since) - since I bought this guitar second hand, I had no user's manual and I couldn't get anything usable on Fender's official website.

So it took me a while but I finally found a few days ago what I was looking for on fenderjaguar.net, and understood that on a Jaguar you have two independent settings you can preset and switch to very easily. The Fender old-timers will think I'm dumb but really, I had no way to know that before - none of my previous guitars have this kind of system...

And, well, I love this guitar...

more sketches, with color variations

I was wondering about my favorite guitar finishes so I made some color variations on a design from a few months ago... You can see that I have quite classic tastes: black and metal, white and black, natural wood and transparent cherry with black or metal pickguard, and - how fancy me! - orange and black... I think that when you have this, you don't really need more...

(clicking on the small pic allows you to access a bigger version)

check this axe

This is not the object of this blog but I couldn't resist showing here this beautiful new guitar model by Nick Page Guitars, the Baron...

It's not only a great design, but they are nice people and their workshop is around my corner - I posted about them already a few months ago.

I tell more about it on the Guitar blog.

more sketches

more sketches, but different

I reached lately some designs that I consider valuable enough to not blend in my mass production... So I made cleaner sketches. I will try to do this more often now, also to come back on old sketches to check how they feel after a few weeks/months, and stop pretending everything is at the same level...

These are quite classic - with a little something extra, I hope.

more sketches

the Televangelist 2

So I finally have time to update this blog about the Televangelist. I made a few changes - mostly reworking the pickguard and varnishing... I'm still not completely happy with the setting - one string keeps buzzing down the neck, I would like to solve this myself and not have to ask for pro help... Gotta try again!

A friend who saw it asked me if I would make one for him but I think that he'd better wait until I made a few more and know more what I'm actually doing!

more sketches

New project: Crackle Guitar

No guitar making nor sketches these last days, I'm on travel, but the brain is still active. I met a few days ago with my friend and experimental electronic musician Daniel Schorno who works at STEIM Amsterdam (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) and build his own instruments.

Brainstorming about instrument making, we had the idea of building together a Crackle Guitar, an hybrid of guitar and STEIM's famous crackle box, an analogic pocket synthesizer played by finger contact on electronic circuits.

We intend to transform the pickguard of a guitar into a graphic circuit that can be touched by the guitarist while playing and alter the sound of the pickups... That will be a project for next year since my working agenda is already quite full, but I'm already quite excited about it!

And though I don't post much here, I keep contributing daily to the Guitar Blog - check me there!