Firebird build spots open

We just glued up another 4 Firebird blanks. These are open for sale... more coming up soon!

Firebird "JR"

Finished up another Firebird! I've been calling this one the "JR" since it draws some inspiration from the Les Paul Juniors.

African Mahogany

Pau Ferro fretboard, MOP inlays

Seymour Duncan P90

Gold Steinberger tuners

Cellioud Tortoise pickguards

Push/Push on the tone pot with a .0047 cap wired for 'cocked wah' tone

Absolutely RIPS!!

teaser shots...

I'm still waiting on the friggin tuners to come off back order but it was time to polish and assemble what I can on the "JR". Two down.. Five to go.

Also managed to get color on Dave's 'bird over the last few days. I"ll get the clear wrapped up on his this week then move on to the next one.

Guitar-b-que 09!

So last Saturday we held our "Guitar-b-Que". We decided to have an open house to cut strat or tele bodies for people all day. Along with cutting bodies we drug out the Weber, cleared out some space in the front office for amps and threw a party!

Everything started here. You could see in my last post that Dave, Steve and I prepped a bunch of material. Dave and I spent most of the following week sending bodies through the wide belt to get them completely prepped.
Around 9:30 people started straggling in and sorting through blanks. I made some guides that showed the tooling path of the CNC.
Here is where I spent ALL day... standing in front of the CNC.
Strat style body about half way run. While this was going on the BBQ was fired up and food started to be cooked.


This made Charlie quite happy
She even made a new friend!
People scarfing down on some food
Guitars were EVERYWHERE! (keen eyes will notice the strat on the right is the "CourtneyCaster"
While everyone was enjoying some food Dad was flush trimming and edge routing bodies.
Cleaning up the neck pocket.
Running the round over

Then it was off to the dreaded part. Everyone was responsible for sanding their own bodies.
sanding.... so much sanding!

Now the REAL party room was our front office. The day before we gave it a much needed cleaning out and freed up some space for people to bring amps to try.
Mike from www.phatdaddyguitarworks.com came down with a Greer Amplification Thunderbolt 30. UNBELIEVABLE amp, already have one on order!
The black and wheat amp in the back corner is my new Greer Oktal Grinder. Another fantastic amp from Nick Greer!
Soon the guys from Brownnote showed up with 3-4 fantastic amps in tow and soon the "amp room" was so crowded you could barely stand in there!!
My Firebird got A LOT of play time during the day!
Dad and Charlie the Shop Dog
More people hanging out by the CNC watching their bodies run.
More Dad working hard. I have to say, Dad, Steve, Dave and even my wife and my mom worked their ARSES off during the day. We couldn't have done it with out their help.

After the BBQ the bar that Dave and I play at weekly hosted a jam for us. Unfortunetly only a few pictures turned out.

"Good night Sacramento, we love you!"

We did get some video though! Steve posted a lot of videos to his youtube account.. check them out!! Just don't hold my playing against me... I badly sliced 3 finger tips on my left hand during the bbq and was playing with band aids on!

fabulous beard brothers guitar builders...

Well I promised an update... Im late but here it is. So the "fabulous beard brothers" got together again to do some more fret work.

Here I am putting the edge bevel on frets.
...then leveling the frets.
The start of crowning
Crowning REALLY wears your pointer finger out!
Poor Dave, we had to pull a couple frets and one chipped.
So we just mixed up some dust with some CA glue.
...and filled it up. Forgot to take a finished picture but it came out nice.
Started on the "JR"
and finished the P90GLT
Dave working on his... working the corners of the frets.
So that was it. Brought a few home to start grain filling. The grain filler does make them look nice!

Day 1 of Fretting Day...

Stars must have aligned today. Some replacement parts for the CNC that were due today didn't make it so we all bailed out of the shop early. Right around the time we were calling it a day I get an email from Dave - "Have 3 hours to kill today after work, you working on guitars?"... well I guess we'll have too now! So I cranked out an extra rack to keep at Steve's and headed over to get a jump start on fretting.

Dave in fancy work clothes... knocking down the sanding sealer I shot last week.
Rolling out some fretwire in Steve's home built radius jig.
Cut and ready to press in!
We've been using Steve's drill press with the StewMac caul to press the frets in.
One down...
Three down.......

We did end up using CA glue on these to make sure they stay seated.
Working our way down. One unexpected upside to the drill press is we could lock the quill while the glue set.
hammering the ends a bit over radius.
Snipping the ends of the wire off at the board.
I don't know why but I thought I was making a funny face here...

After showing Dave what to shoot for he took over.
Before Dave got there Steve and I did my bound 'bird. Steve's using his homemade fret nipper.
pressed and edges filed.
Leveling the frets
And recrowned.

I PROMISE on Sunday we'll get some better shots of the various steps. Dave has really taken over as official documentarian!