Back in the Workshop

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  • John_AJohn_A Frets: 3775
    Good to see you're back Graham :)
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  • DrBobDrBob Frets: 2998
    Oh gawd no, you’re building Jazzmasters ? All sold ?
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  • GSPBASSESGSPBASSES Frets: 2335
    tFB Trader
    DrBob said:
    Oh gawd no, you’re building Jazzmasters ? All sold ?
      All sold I'm afraid, (theoretically anyway) these Jazzmasters are part of a backlog from my last black Friday sale. Although I haven't contacted all the customers concerned. I will make them anyway and then see if customers still want them. These are only a small part of the backlog that was created while I was unwell. So you might be lucky if somebody doesn't want what they ordered back in November. The P Bass being unwanted by the customer now.

    Your life will improve when you realise it’s better to be alone than chase people who do not really care about you. Saying YES to happiness means learning to say NO to things and people that stress you out.

    https://www.facebook.com/grahame.pollard.39/

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  • GSPBASSESGSPBASSES Frets: 2335
    tFB Trader
    lonestar said:
    @GSPBASSES that’s a cracking amount of work for only starting back up! The Lesters are gonna look awesome :)
    Most of the work on these guitars was done back in November.

    Your life will improve when you realise it’s better to be alone than chase people who do not really care about you. Saying YES to happiness means learning to say NO to things and people that stress you out.

    https://www.facebook.com/grahame.pollard.39/

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  • DrBobDrBob Frets: 2998
    GSPBASSES said:
    DrBob said:
    Oh gawd no, you’re building Jazzmasters ? All sold ?
      All sold I'm afraid, (theoretically anyway) these Jazzmasters are part of a backlog from my last black Friday sale. Although I haven't contacted all the customers concerned. I will make them anyway and then see if customers still want them. These are only a small part of the backlog that was created while I was unwell. So you might be lucky if somebody doesn't want what they ordered back in November. The P Bass being unwanted by the customer now.
    Mate if you would bear me in mind should any of the Jazzmaster sales fall through that would be great !
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  • DrBob said:
    GSPBASSES said:
    DrBob said:
    Oh gawd no, you’re building Jazzmasters ? All sold ?
      All sold I'm afraid, (theoretically anyway) these Jazzmasters are part of a backlog from my last black Friday sale. Although I haven't contacted all the customers concerned. I will make them anyway and then see if customers still want them. These are only a small part of the backlog that was created while I was unwell. So you might be lucky if somebody doesn't want what they ordered back in November. The P Bass being unwanted by the customer now.
    Mate if you would bear me in mind should any of the Jazzmaster sales fall through that would be great !
    Hey @DrBob I've had a message from @GSPBASSES and I've told him I'm happy for you to have my JM parts if you wanted? 
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  • GSPBASSES said:

    Much to my better judgement I've agreed to make a Les Paul custom, I will make two of them in case I cock one up. I only decided to do these because @WezV told us where to get the multicoloured binding, so if it all goes pear-shaped I know to blame. The photos show how I've chambered the bodies and glued on the caps, the caps are plain maple as the guitars are going to be black.
    Sorry to hear you've been unwell Graham - glad to see you're back in action though, I always love these threads!

    Is it too much to hope the LP build we'd talked about could be the second LPC please - assuming the first one comes out fine and this stays "spare"?
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  • enteeentee Frets: 93
    great to see you back Graham @GSPBASSES - always keep an eye on what you are making  ;)
    Vox 24, Variax 700, Epiphone Dot Studio (Cats Whiskers pups, custom inlay, custom pickguard), Gretsch 5238T (P90s/B3), Gibson Les Paul Zoot (rainbow), Gretsch 5135 PS, 'Graick' G2312TVR, BarileleBo (electric baritone ukulele G6199).
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  • GSPBASSESGSPBASSES Frets: 2335
    tFB Trader

    This week was more about preparing timber, inserting truss rods gluing on fingerboard, glued on a couple of flame maple caps on Swamp Ash bodies that will be thin line F hole T/C’s. Plus, routed two standard Swamp Ash T/C but not finish them yet. Did manage to finish an all Mahogany Jazzmaster with a Mahogany/Rosewood neck. Also finished two flamed roasted maple necks is a Jazzmaster and a T/C neck. Last job of the week I started a chambered T/C that's going to have a Brazilian Rosewood cap.


    Two T/C's with flame maple caps (there are actually Sycamore), these will both be F hole T/C's.


    Two standard Swamp Ash T/C's, although the top one I think is going to have a P90 neck pickup.



    A chambered Swamp Ash T/C body with its Brazilian Rosewood cap.


    4 maple necks with rosewood fingerboard's two will be Jazzmaster's, and two will be Strat's


    Jazzmaster neck flame roasted maple, flame roasted maple T/C neck, mahogany/rosewood Jazzmaster neck.


    Mahogany Jazzmaster with its Mahogany/Rosewood neck.

    Your life will improve when you realise it’s better to be alone than chase people who do not really care about you. Saying YES to happiness means learning to say NO to things and people that stress you out.

    https://www.facebook.com/grahame.pollard.39/

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  • Those flame roasted maple necks look absolutely phenomenal! 
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  • My word there is some fine stuff there -  the flame roasted maple Jazzmaster neck and the top for the chambered tele in particular, Plus there is something very special about a tele with a P90 in the neck. Great to see you back in the workshop.
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  • uksaint7uksaint7 Frets: 308
    Glad you're back doing your thing Graham! I remember a while back you mentioned you had a bad reaction to working with roasted maple, has that now eased off?
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  • Great to see you back at it Graham! (@gspbasses) Fingers X'd for the meds ...
    MY tele is down with Rich atm so will be posting NGD pics when its finished =)
    Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life
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  • GSPBASSESGSPBASSES Frets: 2335
    tFB Trader
    uksaint7 said:
    Glad you're back doing your thing Graham! I remember a while back you mentioned you had a bad reaction to working with roasted maple, has that now eased off?
    Yes, you're absolutely right, I still have a reaction to the dust from Roasted Maple. However I do have a new 3M facemask that seems to be working very well, but once I've used up my stock of Roasted Maple I doubt if I will buy any more. I should add that I might not be able to buy any more anyway, as the European suppliers of Roasted Maple are unable to do so any more. Bringing Roasted Maple in from America is just far too expensive, I've been quoted 2 to 3 times the cost of the European Roasted Maple.

    Your life will improve when you realise it’s better to be alone than chase people who do not really care about you. Saying YES to happiness means learning to say NO to things and people that stress you out.

    https://www.facebook.com/grahame.pollard.39/

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  • RolandRoland Frets: 8590
    Have you considered selling off some of the roasted maple, rather than working it yourself?
    Tree recycler, and guitarist with  https://www.undercoversband.com/.
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  • GSPBASSESGSPBASSES Frets: 2335
    edited February 2018 tFB Trader
    Roland said:
    Have you considered selling off some of the roasted maple, rather than working it yourself?
    I've only got 7 roasted maple neck blanks left, they are all ordered, when they've gone I should think that be the end of the Roasted Maple for me. Although I have got at least 6 Roasted Maple necks part finished, but all the shaping is done, so it really is just drilling the tuner holes plus fretted.

      I mentioned earlier on in this post about some dark Rosewood I found, will I made a couple necks with it now and it really is nice. As a consequence, I decided to go and buy some more. What I did find out  about this Rosewood it's 60 to 70 years old most likely a lot older, as the date on the packing case apparently was the late sixties. It was imported into the Liverpool docks, along with several large logs at half a ton each. Not long after this date the original ban on Rosewood come in to affect. This was not like the current problems with Rosewood, this was the banding of importing and exporting logs. I believe this was called the Lucy ruling, which  basically meant that in the case of Rosewood it had to be worked in the country where the tree was cut down to add value to the wood, so instead of exporting logs of Rosewood they were cut up into some kind of product, like fingerboard. I believe this is what Gibson got into trouble with a few years ago with a container full of logs instead of fingerboard's.

     This Rosewood is nothing like the plantation Rosewood that is available now, this Rosewood is naturally forest grown. It's much denser, much darker and the grain tends to be a bit wiggly wobbly, unlike plantation grown rosewood with tends to be very straight grained. I don't think this rosewood was imported for guitar making, as it's 25mm thick by 66mm wide, and 700mm long.

    I purchased 10 of these blocks in the hope I could slice it up to get 3 fingerboard's out of the block, I did in fact manage this, although a few of them are a bit thin, but should still be usable. 



    The blocks before I slice them up.




    I did manage to get 30 fingerboard's out of these blocks, a couple are a bit thin but still over 6mm thick, so still usable. 




    As you can see really pretty grain patterns, and lovely colour, although this will go much darker in time.



    The Jazzmaster neck on the right shows how dark this Rosewood will go.

    Your life will improve when you realise it’s better to be alone than chase people who do not really care about you. Saying YES to happiness means learning to say NO to things and people that stress you out.

    https://www.facebook.com/grahame.pollard.39/

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  • GSPBASSESGSPBASSES Frets: 2335
    tFB Trader
    GSPBASSES said:

    Much to my better judgement I've agreed to make a Les Paul custom, I will make two of them in case I cock one up. I only decided to do these because @WezV told us where to get the multicoloured binding, so if it all goes pear-shaped I know to blame. The photos show how I've chambered the bodies and glued on the caps, the caps are plain maple as the guitars are going to be black.
    Sorry to hear you've been unwell Graham - glad to see you're back in action though, I always love these threads!

    Is it too much to hope the LP build we'd talked about could be the second LPC please - assuming the first one comes out fine and this stays "spare"?
    I don't see why not, rough carving of the tops was completed today, so hopefully early next week I will get stuck into making the necks finishing the bodies.

    Your life will improve when you realise it’s better to be alone than chase people who do not really care about you. Saying YES to happiness means learning to say NO to things and people that stress you out.

    https://www.facebook.com/grahame.pollard.39/

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  • That is just fantasic:



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  • guitargeek62guitargeek62 Frets: 4066
    edited February 2018
    Superb - thanks Graham, I’m not planning any more guitar purchases for quite a while so it’ll be nice to round out the collection with a second one from you.

    *edit* feel free to leave that second neck as chunky as you like btw!
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  • GSPBASSESGSPBASSES Frets: 2335
    edited February 2018 tFB Trader

    It's been a odd week, I had 3 mahogany Jazzmaster builds to complete by Friday, failed miserably, although I should say not strictly my fault. One mahogany Jazzmaster that was almost finished last week was completed on time and sent out. The other two were disasters, both suffering from cracks in the mahogany. The first one is not too bad. It has some very fine cracks on the edge of the body. It is repairable, I can either inject glue into the cracks, or cut the cracks out and glue it a new piece of wood. The other body has some cracks at the end of the body. I can't see how deep or how far the cracks go into the body, I could inject glue into these cracks and it would be fine. When I've have time I will most likely do these repairs and sell them off as B grade.

    I did manage to finish off 4 necks, 2 Strats and 2 T/C’s.

       I did get very distracted on a visit out to David Dykes when I purchased the very old rosewood. Anyone who's ever been to David Dykes will know what I mean, even though I go there a couple of times a week. I waste so much time rummaging through his vast stocks of wood. Normally coming away with lots of wood that I haven't got orders for. I also went there to buy Alder for builds that are coming up. Alder seems to be the wood of choice for Jazzmaster's and late 50's and early 60's Stratocaster's.

    The old Rosewood I purchased is now is all sliced up ready to use, although this won't be used in the foreseeable future as I already have a lot of Rosewood ready to use.

     

    The Les Paul's I started last week have now had their tops roughly carved, I will try and get the carving finished next week and start the builds.

     

    I'm now off for a short weekend away with my friends at the Chickenshed, we are going to a Joe Collins night at the shed Sunday evening.



    This one did go out on time.





    You can just see the very small cracks, I'll most likely machine the corner off and glue a piece of mahogany.



    One of the cracks on the end of the body, I think injecting glue into them will solve the problem. If not a piece of very expensive firewood.


    I forgot to mentioned I've almost completed two TC bodies.


    Your life will improve when you realise it’s better to be alone than chase people who do not really care about you. Saying YES to happiness means learning to say NO to things and people that stress you out.

    https://www.facebook.com/grahame.pollard.39/

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