Wednesday, February 17, 2010



Well the body is nice and clean I was able to find the same corners I used on the model that Keni Lee played in the Judge Judy video. On to the bridge,tail-piece,frets,nut finish.......

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Here is how the headstock binding turned out...


Picture of the neck mostly carved, still need to detail sand and clean it up a little here and there.


If you have been following this build you will notice the spalted maple cap is missing, it popped right off when I was carving the heel. I don't know if I am going to leave the black or put something over it. I will see what it looks like when I match it with the body


Three strings with a truss-rod... Yes, I think it's overkill as well. But I had to try.


I love this Bacote fingerboard. (Still need to trim the binding)

Monday, February 8, 2010

As I continue building custom CBG's, I have been working on a new line that is a neck through model. These CBG's are acoustic/electric 3 and 4 strings. The one pictured below is nod to "Blackie" one of my all time favorite guitars. If you get a chance please let me know what you think. "Blackie"has a very warm sound and does not mind a little over-drive to get you where you want to go. $235.00 plus shipping and includes a copy of Keni Lee Burgess' instructional CD/DVD.





Tried something new on this build. Originally, I was not going to bind the headstock. However, as I started looking at the neck I decided it really would be much better with binding. I did not think that my customer would mind a little extra tiger maple....So I drug out my beading plane a jigsaw blade and a file to shape the cutter, said my prayers and began.



The trick was to plow out the channel for the binding. I would say that all in all I think this method was a pretty good way to go. The results were very respectable.



With a little time and patience you can really do a nice job with simple hand tools.
Capture bolt and nut use to attach the neck to the body.


Fingerboard attached to the neck blank.


Still need to flush trim edge of fingerboard to the neck, this also gives a view of the working end of the Capture bolt.


Trimming fingerboard flush.


Leveling fingerboard.


Installing the binding.



Here is the slot in the headstock.


Here is a shot of the template that I used to rout the slot for the peg-head.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

and the beat goes on....



This is the first build that I am installing a truss rod. I am using a double action rod from Stew-Mac.


Next I glued on the headstock overlay - black dyed Pear wood and did some layout for the slotted headstock

From this board of Bacote ($30.00 a board foot) will come the blank for the fingerboard.


I should be able to get a match from one of these three. Notice how light the color of the wood is when it is freshly sanded.

A simple jig to layout the position for the tuners.