Happy Christmas to you all!!

As you probably saw, the last post was my 200^th. When I started this blog, I had no idea whether or not anyone would be interested in my ramblings, but this week we are hitting over 100,000 pages views and there are now 67 followers! It’s a similar thing with my YouTube channel; this last week I had my 200^th subscriber (204 now) and almost 90,000 views! So I guess I would like to say a great big “Thank You” to all of you who have found my work of interest and also Amanda and I would like take this opportunity of wishing everyone who knows us a very Happy Christmas and a healthy 2013.

So what’s on the bench?

I’ve been French polishing John’s twin-point and below is a picture of the three piece cocobolo back; it’s really starting to look quite spectacular!

In between polishing sessions, I had a Guild Madeira guitar to work on; the action needed to be lowered. You can see that it had an adjustable bridge, but it was set at its lowest point- so low that the strings did not break properly over the saddle. As the neck was sound, the top of the bridge had to planned lower- (and what a surprise maple!). The saddle slot was made narrower and I then cut ramps to improve the break angle and fitted a wide bone saddle in order to improve the intonation.  I was really pleased with the result; a guitar that can now be played and enjoyed.

Also I’ve been working on the next “Standard” mandolin; number IV. This one has been pre-ordered by Tristan and you can see that the maple/spruce body is now together and the rosewood bindings are just going on. As you know, my aim with the Standard is to make an affordable instrument and I’ve noticed that one short-cut which some makers/manufacturers use to achieve this is to leave the instrument unbound. Now you can leave out the purfling (on a fretted instrument) as it really is just decorative but the binding does have a very real function; to protect the corners and hence the top and back joints from damage and these shouldn’t be left out for the sake of economy.

And I’ve been working on the next Standard Plus; this one pre-ordered by Tony. You can see that I’ve been gluing on the double thickness, solid linings that I use on all of my instruments. And here is the rather splendid English Walnut back- can’t wait to get some polish on it!