Shop talk - The making of

A complete guitar! Just missing the wood...

I work only with the highest quality components and hand crafted pickups, ideally locally sourced. Because contrary to the big manufacturers who benefit from scale, there is no point here in trying to save money on these items. The difference in the sound and playability is well worth the little bit of extra money.

The design and layout is the first and critical step. Working with the player we can decide on shape, features such as tummy cut, beveled armrest, placement of the controls, etc. This produces the front template that will be used later to shape the body.

The neck also gets lays out on the neck blank, the first step is to route the channel for the trussrod, before the fret board is glued on.

This slab of ash will become the guitar's body. the heart of the tree and any unstable areas are removed then the pieces are planned and assembled to make the body blank.

The outline is marked on the body blank - here a flame maple top was added to this guitar- and then cut out using the bandsaw.

There is always something you can work on in guitar making, while the body is being glued up for example you can work on the neck, here cutting the fret slots before contouring the neck.

Once the outline for the body cut out, comes the time for hollowing out the various cavities, carving the various shapes and profiles needed.

Once the outline of the neck cut out, the fret markers inlayed, the fret board radiused to the chosen radius, I crown the frets and hammer them in. The extra length is snipped off and then starts the intricate and laborious but critical fret dressing work, a step often skipped by factory made instruments since it is so labour intensive.

Filling the fret ends flush and to a specific angle...