Repair Work is Key...

Most guitar makers I've talked with feel experience with repairing and restoring instruments leads to a better understanding of design. What has worked over the years and what hasn't. While I no longer am able to repair instruments daily, I still have repair shop & get calls to repair something no one else wants to. I'm also always making sure as an instructor I'm up to date on current repair techniques and keeping my skills sharp.

Here is a guitar that, in a way, survived a house fire. The owner has had this guitar for a very long time and is attached to it. I wanted to help him out and get it back to playing condition and if possible, looking pretty good in the process.

























The process involved disassembling the head stock and piecing it back together (and to dimension) with a spline made out of the same species of wood as the neck. The fingerboard was loose from the neck about half the length of the neck and that had to be cleaned up, heated and re-glued to the neck stock. Since a piece of wood was missing from the bass side of the neck a new piece was made, glued and shaped to match the original design. Finally a piece of figured maple was used to cover the face of the headstock a bit thicker than the original to further strengthen the repair. The final stages of repair were matching the color, spraying the clear coats, buffing, and completing the work with a fret job, a new nut and a set-up.

Not too bad in the end if you ask me.

Advanced Finishing 2008

What a great run of instruments for the graduating class of 2008. Again we had the opportunity to run the advanced finishing class where students were able to dream up the color and look in their mind and then make it happen.

Pictured to the right is a beautiful hand applied sunburst on swamp ash with a dark grain filler to highlight the pores.


Next color is used to enhance a piece of wood with some great curly figure.




Here is a mahogany instrument with light colored pore filler under a sprayed blue/purple toner. The options are pretty much endless when you understand the methods and materials that go into high quality finishing.










Ah and here are some fine looking mandolins! One is a hand applied color using red as the foundation with subtle shading techniques along the edges and the other is a more traditional sprayed sunburst that looks great.





















Here are some other fantastic instruments as well. (I haven't included all the instruments that were done simply because either the pictures didn't turn out or I have yet to crop and adjust their file sizes.)

Back to school!!!

Whoah, what happened to summer? We're back to work and currently in the Basic Materials class and our Intro to Tools class. Our shops have all new floors bringing our renovation to a conclusion (knock on spruce) and things are running smoothly (knock on rosewood).

These two classes are prerequisites for the whole year and lay the foundation for what is to come. It's great to be back and we're very excited for the 2008-2009 school year!