Crimson Guitars

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The guitar makers blog from Crimson Guitars 160712

Welcome to Crimson Guitars, this weekly blog follows every stage of every custom build and project that we take on. We don’t do repairs, and definitely don’t do restorations (quite simply I don’t have the time given how many customers are waiting for their bespoke instruments) However we occasionally do take on the more interesting jobs and this week there is such a one..

This Godin guitar, beautiful and expensive though it is..
needs a rather large hole drilled in the front!
Given the complexity of the wiring I’ve elected not to remove everything, though I really would have preferred to, the routing was done using the overhead router.. freehand!
The three controls are installed and then the beautifully wired internal unit from Amptone lab is fitted. The connectors are all quick fit units and make this part much easier than it is with units built by others..
A few small back plates make for a messy rear end but I had little choice in the placement of the controls.
And here we are, a fully working and rather attractive xy MIDI pad touch screen controller to control everything from a Kaoss pad to a MIDI keyboard.. a most useful toy, especially if you happen to be a Matt Bellamy fan.

Just for fun here is a demo of an earlier Muse guitar we built, it is a very early demo and is not the best quality but it does give you an idea of what is possible
Now, I’m trying to clear the decks a bit prior to starting a tranche of new builds and this custom archtop guitar I built about 8 years ago needs a few mods.. I say mods, I never really finished it the way I wanted at the time and it has come back.. I feel somewhat vindicated.
A Bartolini pickup is installed at the neck.. which is more work than it looks, for some reason the brass fitting is always bent to fit a much smaller than standard neck. They would do better to leave it straight and let the end user bend it to the right size as straightening and the re-bending is a bugger!
Anyway, the tailpiece I made all those years ago has been hanging on my wall feeling unfulfilled and is finally about to be used
Strung up, and beautiful.. but still not quite there yet.
We have to create a custom scratchplate, here is the template the client and I drew up… time to step back for a while though while I try and figure out the best material to use
A good distraction is some fretwork on one of the stock guitars.. This beauty is bound in aluminium with alloy and abalone inlays
The fretboard is carefully masked off.. a satisfying job indeed!
the frets are leveled and profiled and finally polished..

Another one of our YouTube videos, this one walking through the leveling processes.. enjoy

A most wonderful friend of ours on one of the myriad social networks we post on daily (links below) suggested we mask the sides of the fretboard before the top, this allows us to remove it all, pretty much, in one go. Thank you sir!!

Now, the jazz guitar client and I decide on ebony.. it took me a while to find the blank that I knew I had in stock somewhere but here we go..
I can’t in good consciousness leave this flat and boring.. here’s the initial plan..
and here is the final result after carving and sanding.. ebony is a real bugger, that dust is lethal and gets everywhere!!
The single volume pot, with treble bleed, is installed and the scratchplate is fitted using a single screw through the side of the fretboard.. I wanted to keep the lines nice and clean and a screw through the front always looks a bit shit in my opinion.Here we have it, the new/old Crimson Guitars archtop jazz guitar..
Now, another project that has been dragging for a while, we left last weeks workshop blog pondering the effect of the chrome pickup in the bridge position of the new custom hollowbody guitar..
more ebony was the final decision.
Actually I amalgamated both options, I shot blast the pickup to match the hardware and added a curved ebony cover in the middle.. a true custom pickup!
Did you know that you can take apart Sperzel tuners and change them from left to right-handed and vice versa.. a very useful property they have and evidence of some superb engineering by Sperzel!
The new locking tuners are installed as is the magnetically attached ebony truss rod cover.. I can’t seem to get away from ebony this week, what is that!?