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the guitar builders blog – 20th of February 2012

A song, a chord, a single string vibrating out that complex interaction between guitar and guitarist. There is no sterile computer generated perfection as we coax the music from our guitars, there can’t be, every movement we make is unique, every second we play informs the next and the next and our technique grows from infantile fumblings to musicianship and beyond to full-fledged creation. the same holds true with the guitar itself, we will not stamp out facsimiles of jaded designs and outmoded concepts, treasured though these may be. we will not give the task of hewing the neck that will guide your fingers from note to note to a mere CNC machine juggling ones and zeros.. where is the soul in that? A mass produced guitar can have character, can indeed be wonderful, but at Crimson Guitars we will take that timber and work it, by hand, into an individual instrument custom made to fit you.. no more an instrument with tens of thousands of identical brothers and sisters but one with with a vast ancestry and no siblings! Character, beauty, individualism.. Soul… this is what makes a custom guitar.. We make custom guitars.

Crimson Guitars – redefining custom

check out the video here – A guitar builders blog

These abalone ‘halo’ inlays were installed in the padouk fretboard last week and, excited as I am by them, the first job of the week is to sand and file away the excess so that I can see the final result.. and I love it!
Still fighting the dreaded flu I am having to avoid any particularly dusty jobs.. it is lucky that there are so many necks in need of fretting!
not to mention binding, using one of my fantastic Japanese saws I cut a strip of brazilian rosewood for the halo guitars binding material.
Which is glued in place carefully.. (of course)
Pauls elm bodied PAF guitar has its stainless steel inlay finalized..
As the neck pocket extends underneath the neck pickup the excess wood has to be cut away… surprise surprise, it’s a Japanese saw again! They cut on the pull and thus are under much less tension while cutting.. therefore you get much thinner blades, more teeth per inch and a fantastic cut… just don’t get your fingers!!

a little finessing and we have a perfect joint.
A little white glue and a lot of pressure and we have, pretty much, a complete guitar.
Back to the Brazilian rosewood binding, well, Brazilian on the outside, padouk in the middle with a thin strip of humble black plastic on the inside.. the end piece of glued together..
And glued in place.. the final result is a stunning hand made guitar neck that I am really proud of!
Now, back to the much-neglected detachable twin neck guitar/6 string bass.
First things first I need to work out where the necks should be fitted.
and it is on to routing the neck pockets.. last week this simple job was utterly beyond me.. in guitar building you have to have a pin sharp mind or you may as well just burn whatever guitar you’re trying to build!!
Talking about sharp, it is at this stage I have to take a break to sharpen a few chisels..

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While I’m about it here is a custom made chisel handle I made, it’s perfectly balanced and ideal for fine hand work.. though not great if you want to bang away with a mallet.. that’s not my thing!
The guitar is next.. another perfect joint..
Here you can see that when I was cutting out the ergonomic bass guitar body I erred on the side of caution where the neck pocket was concerned..
A bit of re-shaping on the bobbin sander sees me right.. I love this tool!
And here is a look at the final aesthetics.. ish. A pair of custom made padouk covered pickups will do nicely.
And here, with the pickups marked out on both instruments, is pretty much how I envision them looking in their combined configuration.. (was that a real sentence or just plain verbosity??)
To make life easier on the router bits every cavity is pre-drilled using the pillar drill and a forstner bit or two.
And finally I get the pickup cavities routed and they start looking the part.. I do enjoy this stage of every custom guitar build.
This spalted Poplar is really rather pretty.. and locally grown to boot!
Control cavities routed..
And we have two perfectly serviceable instruments in their own right! Perfect!!
a bit of work trying to visualize the final joint.. it’s good to have a goal even though it will invariably change in the actual carving process.. wood does that to you every time!
More fretwork to get cleared away.. I’m desperate to get the first batch of stock(ish) instruments out and for sale!
And we are going to end up with a fair few gorgeous guitars by all accounts!
Now weight is an obvious consideration when building a hand made twin neck guitar, the headstock needs to be hollowed somewhat.
By hand of course.. I’ve removed two of every three teeth from this blade to give a nice quick cut through thick wood.. hell, I’ve had the same blade in this saw for nearly ten years!!!
And the result is sublime. (I’m really really enjoying this build and am honestly trying to keep the smugness out of my dialogue.. it’s just so damn hard! 😉
The back of the neck has to be planed down to the final, perfectly flat, dimension.
Same with the guitar side.. (next week I continue the alloy ‘flight line’ into the guitar body.. that should be fun!)
With the neck clamped up and curing
It is time to start trying to work out the best way to carve the instruments so that they work either as a pair or apart.. no mean feat and not something I could do on paper, there is nothing like having the wood in front of you to bring forth the inspiration.
This looks about right.. the six string bass neck is glued in next.. there can be no carving without it in place.
..and it begins!!! (trumpets sound yada yada…. )
the top needs lots of relief for comfort and weight..
and of course with such a long neck pocket there has to be massive carving there so you can actually play the beast.
Now to the scary bit.. how the hell is this going to work??
mm.. a bit like this! Roughed out with the grinder and sanding disk next week I will rout away to the final dimensions.
On to the guitar bit.. no flat tops here!
again with the pretty wood!
it always strikes me as a bit incongruous seeing a perfectly finished custom guitar fret-board attached to a half -carved embryonic body.. still, that’s the way guitars are built.
Finally here is the joint between the twin bodies.. the guitar will end up much deeper in the bass and vise-versa but you get the idea..
I cannot wait