Corvus Guitar Works - builds, paint, mods/servicing, Cambs

Corvus

Quick one to say Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a good one. Everyone I've met from here has been a man of oak, it's been a real pleasure.

Me and Ms Crow managed to catch covid this week so work halted as I seem to have turned into a cat - brief bouts of activity followed by tremendous kipping. Back at it soon.

For completeness I'm putting this pic here, I knew Si and me liked it but was knocked out by the positive response on the guitar section thread - 60 wows.. amazing and cheered me up no end being generally wasted this last week.
Will be catching up on work in a few days & updating people as & when. Cheers till then.

paulnb57

Corvus said:

Quick one to say Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a good one. Everyone I've met from here has been a man of oak, it's been a real pleasure.

Me and Ms Crow managed to catch covid this week so work halted as I seem to have turned into a cat - brief bouts of activity followed by tremendous kipping. Back at it soon.

For completeness I'm putting this pic here, I knew Si and me liked it but was knocked out by the positive response on the guitar section thread - 60 wows.. amazing and cheered me up no end being generally wasted this last week.
Will be catching up on work in a few days & updating people as & when. Cheers till then.

Bill, I think this is one of the best guitar finishes Ive ever seen

Hope you get well soon…

grappagreen

Corvus said:

Quick one to say Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a good one. Everyone I've met from here has been a man of oak, it's been a real pleasure.

Me and Ms Crow managed to catch covid this week so work halted as I seem to have turned into a cat - brief bouts of activity followed by tremendous kipping. Back at it soon.

For completeness I'm putting this pic here, I knew Si and me liked it but was knocked out by the positive response on the guitar section thread - 60 wows.. amazing and cheered me up no end being generally wasted this last week.
Will be catching up on work in a few days & updating people as & when. Cheers till then.

Hope you and the wife are on the mend Bill! Rest up and take it easy.

Thanks for the stuff you’ve done this year and especially the Charvel refin - it’s a work of art!

If I don’t speak to you before have a fantastic New Year.

Si

roberty

paulnb57 said:

Corvus said:

Quick one to say Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a good one. Everyone I've met from here has been a man of oak, it's been a real pleasure.

Me and Ms Crow managed to catch covid this week so work halted as I seem to have turned into a cat - brief bouts of activity followed by tremendous kipping. Back at it soon.

For completeness I'm putting this pic here, I knew Si and me liked it but was knocked out by the positive response on the guitar section thread - 60 wows.. amazing and cheered me up no end being generally wasted this last week.
Will be catching up on work in a few days & updating people as & when. Cheers till then.

Bill, I think this is one of the best guitar finishes Ive ever seen

Hope you get well soon…

Have to agree with this (both things)

Corvus

Thanks kindly chaps!

Corvus

Couple of minor things. This only came in for a setup but dang it's pretty -



It's got a Descendant trem which feels great, not so keen on the brushed finish but it's a very nice thing. Bridge from the same source too.

Corvus

I still like to muck about with things in the eves or weekends, and over Xmas with covid and then the fluey bug right after, I did bits of things as & when possible. Got a 1960s lamp. Was black and rusty, so stripped it down, derusted and cleaned & polished etc and put together with new wiring. It's bench bracket is mahogany + flame maple : )) All very unnecessary but it's handy lamp, a good reach and plenty bright

Corvus

And a very unnecessary neck rest made from scrap bits. Made the maple-black-maple purfling/banding and mitred the corners, I was happy they fitted well with no gaps.
The upper rest bit is just screwed on, so the bottom bit could be made into a stash box I suppose, maybe for plectrums or other small bits the workshop monkeys like to move at night -

TTony

Why?

Well, because I can, and it's pretty, so why not!



SeriousQ - where do you get your decent thickness/quality cork from??

Corvus

Hi Tony, just random fleabay hunting - some's self-stick and some not. I've used natural leather for bits like this before too but the price of it looked a bit steep just now, so cork it is. You can get pretty thick leather too.

Corvus

I thought things would be quiet-ish after Xmas, but not a bit of it. Lots of setups & minor mods, some slightly unusual things like ageing hardware, stripping neck finishes and ageing the raw wood. Lots of paint.

Sometimes I get the feeling people are maybe slightly embarrassed about bringing in lower-budget guitars, but they get the same care as anything else. Like an old cheapie Squier Strat came in, it was unplayable, ropey state and sounded ropey, but it was the guy's first guitar. It went out very usable with a fettle and new pickups, new electrics.

I'm probably not doing it right but sometimes I give small sneaky discounts or do extra bits without telling people, like this young girl with a guitar in a bad state from a previous setup. Or a young lad who'd saved two years to buy a Strat that had issues, taken it to a shop who did a really hideous setup on it, just unplayable. Other problems with it too.
They'll never know and it won't make any odds to me or them really but hopefully they get a guitar that gives 'em a chance to get going with instead of putting them off.

Anyway. Fair bit of paint in at the mo. We're possibly moving so I'm not taking in any more paint just now, until I can gauge what will definitely be done in time.



He's with me whenever possible, but is a bit of a slacker:

Corvus

An Eggle 96 has just gone out the door. The owner hated the shoreline-ish gold and the checking (razor), and went for black. The plastics got blacked out too with the corned beef plates ditched for BWB ones.

Blackest  black I could muster. Here's a reflection -




And more pics -

Corvus

Here's a few pics of Si's Hamer Chaparall. There's something about this that's really nice to play, but it had to get stripped down to sort the paint out.
I managed to lose some pics so this is the only one showing the colour it was wearing, the headstock paint isn't quite the right shape as it happens



It got stripped to bare wood. As ever the wood on these around this time is lovely top-quality stuff. The ebony fretboard is great, the neck is three-piece maple (extra strips making up the head). Light mahogany body.
After getting into a tinted primer stage, it got a refret in 6000s. The existing frets were about OK but worn and with limited life, makes sense to do this now

Corvus

Reference pics are hard to come by and with varying light and the cameras used, it's hard to get a clear idea of colour. I hope this is something close. Nitro pink with pearl over it - can't really show the pearly glow just now but better pics will come later





Yeah. Failure to spangle. I'll try again later.

Corvus

I haven't been able to push on further with my still-not-really-named model, other work comes in and needs doing so.. But this prototype is being used by a band who's things I've been working on, 11-12 guitars & basses. It's going out on a mini-tour,  feedback is all positive so far but it's always good to find out what's good and less good both-

TTony

Corvus said:

Flattie?

Corvus

Pretty flat there, but he's a German Longhaired Pointer. Or if you meet people on a walk he's a 'nice setter' or a 'big spaniel'
We did have a Flatcoat before, he was a good boy.

TTony

Ahhhh - just reminded me of the flattie we had a few years back.  

Corvus

Fabulous dogs, love 'em.

Corvus

Epi Crestwood Custom

Gibson-made from 1962. It's had a life, basically getting a restoration to state reflecting it's age; full strip & paint, fix what's needed, refret. I thought about doing a separate thread but think I'll do updates here.
It's some work alright with a few challenges but I'm liking it so far.



Among the issues -

Repaint that makes it look like a toy guitar
Tuner holes roughly chopped out to fit Schallers, headstock facing damage around the holes
Pickup cavities roughly chopped to fit PAFs at some point
Odd goings on with the side dots
Pickguard isn't original, it was sanded & painted white underneath. No idea what decade or model it's from, not any recentish reissue

There's nothing really tragically off, no neck or head breaks for instance. Was a time old guitars weren't worth much of anything so mods were common. Now everything seems to be 'original' and ones with DIY mods thin on the ground...