May 02 2007
We all have moments of weakness, when we do things we know we shouldn’t. We make choices based on motivations we really don’t understand and, sometimes, the consequences of those choices can be unpredictible. Such was the case a few months back when I went to an auction to sell some stuff. Here are some photos of what I left with:
Aug 29 2006
I can admit that I’ve always been a fan of ocarinas and, more specifically, sweet potatos. They have a sweet warm mellow tone, feel wonderful in the hand, and are easily portable. I’ve been preparing for a large scale recording that will use, primarily, acoustic instruments and have been aquiring instruments that have unique or interesting tonalities.
A while back I purchased an old Gretsch plastic sweet potato and, although it has a wonderful nostalgia to it, it doesn’t sound or play very well. While poking around on Ebay, I discovered a fellow by the name of Charlie Hind who hand builds wooden ocarinas and sweet potatos. His work, which can be seen on his web site, is really beautiful. He works, mostly, in walnut, a wood that I’m really fond of. In exploring his site, I noticed that he’d created a few instruments in mahogany, and I remembered that I had a rather large piece left over from my guitar project. I emailed him and asked if he’d be willing to work with my wood, and he said yes.
Charlie has been more than kind. He’s been photographing the process of creating the instrument for me, and has allowed me to post his pix here.
I’ll also include some of his comments.
Mar 23 2006
With the kind assistance of a volunteer, I recorded my performance at Dung Mummy on my video camera. The performance, in its entirety, was about 25 minutes. This excerpt, about 11 minutes in length, comes from the middle, when I had switched from my gretsch to my Industrial Guitar Indy Rail.
Click here to hear audio. Note: the file is about 10 MB.
If you’re interested, you can see pix of the guitar effects I use and read about what they do.
Enjoy!
Mar 23 2006
Although I had no idea at the time, Jason Savvy (aka Monkey Wrench) was snapping pix while I was performing. He was kind enough to post them, and share them with the performers.
Mar 19 2006
I got a custom case made for my new custom guitar, and decided to have a matching one made for my lap steel. The company that made them, Morris & Holmberg Cases in Santa Ana, did a pretty nice job. They used material I provided them, and painted it with a custom color. Sweet!
Feb 17 2006
Here’s another pic of the guitar body. It has received several coats of boiled linseed oil, tung oil, and lacquer. Pretty!
Feb 01 2006
Well, after some patient prodding I finally reconnected with Randy, who did the last few bits of shaping. He rounded off the neck heel, and a few transitions on the curves leading into and away from it. This, of course, required me to completely disassemble the guitar. After he finished that last bit of shaping, I was able to start on the finishing process. The finishing process is one that requires patience. The first step is sanding, followed by sanding, then more sanding. After that, I applied several thinned coats of boiled linseed oil.
Here are some pix taken after the oil was applied.
Jan 01 2006
Here’s a somewhat boring
Dec 04 2005
Well, I’ve posted some more pix of the guitar project. The first set shows Randy Simon cutting out the body, and doing some work on it. It also shows the body after the edges had been rounded by a router, and the two top cut-outs shaped for ergonomic considerations. The last three pix depict some finish tests.
The second set shows the assembled guitar, the wood still unfinished, and a few details remaining to be addressed. The edges of the neck block (on the back of the body where the ferrules and screws are) needs to be rounded, and a small portion of the body leading to the neck pocket needs rounding also. The string ferrules are not installed, and will be pushed into their holes when finishing is complete.
I’ve had the guitar in this assembled form for a few weeks now and, aside from some very minor issues, I really love the way it feels and sounds.