Repairs, reading and more wood!

Mandocello

You can see that the neck and fingerboard are now on the mandocello, it’s been fretted and the next step will be to carve the neck. This will be followed by a big clean-up prior to French polishing. I’m still really pleased about the way it looks and I think I’d like to try a guitar this shape.

Repair work

Whilst on the subject of fretting, I’ve just had this 20 year old Strat to re-fret and refurbish. You can see the frets were worn away to practically nothing and the bridge was heavily corroded.

So it’s had its re-fret and quite a few new parts from WD Music and it has now been rehabilitated and is ready take its palace in society again.




More wood!!

I’ve just got a batch of 20 prime ebony fingerboards in. This is the first time that I’ve directly imported myself rather than buy from a specialist dealer. The package arrived from India wrapped in a hand-sown muslin package and sealed with wax! The boards are really top quality, some of the best I’ve seen for a while. They will go into storage and I probably won’t use any of them for at least two years.

Below is a great way to store them; the boards are spaced apart with strips of plywood to allow air-flow and then tied together using cable ties. This keeps them flat and easy to move around.

A good read

I’ve just got hold of this book Blue Guitar by Ken Vose. I’ve been after it for a few years, but it’s always so expensive, fortunately I got this for a good price on eBay. There are 21 arch top guitars (all blue) custom built by luthiers for a collector. There are some fantastic instruments here; a very inspiring book! I must get on with Andy’s.............