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The guitar builders blog | 300312
The Guitar builders Blog is primarily a way for us to keep our clients up to date with their custom guitars through each part of the build but has grown into an online resource for all sorts of guitar builders, from professionals to the hobbiest, as such we’ve started a video blog as well, some of these are designed to accompany a particular blog page and you’ll see close ups of the various instruments in progress and luthier Ben Crowe will discuss what’s going on, other videos are ‘how to build a guitar’ tutorials and/or monologues on any aspect of a guitars design or the guitar building world. You can follow all of this directly through YouTube or Vimeo or through the videos tabs at the top of this page..
One rather large job that I’ve been working on of an evening has been the total revamping of the gallery pages of the site, I’ve simplified it massively and removed lots of older, more poorly photographed, guitars. Your opinions and feedback would be very much appreciated!
Pretty pretty purpleheart, this timber is visually striking and we are lucky to have some in stock with figuring, this is not common at all and I thought I’d share it with you.. the colour tends to fade to brown over time unless you use a uv protective lacquer.. we will 
Another tip for all you recyclers out there, I use large springs under my direct mounted pickups, I think it transfers more energy from the strings in to the pickup and thus creates a better tone.. these beautiful springs cost one whole pound and we had the added benefit of popping the party poppers they came in!
Now, on to the current Muse Guitar project, this time all the electronics will be fitted into a les paul type guitar.
The logo, cut from padouk to match the inlays, is glued in place.
The final sanding process begins.. this mini air-powered random orbital sander is a thing of beauty and is very useful in tight spots!
The whole guitar is sanded now to 400 grit and is ready for stain and grain filling.
The stock(ish) range is coming together nicely, here I drill the side dot inlays holes into an aluminium binding!
what more can I say?
Now, the gorgeous detachable twin neck guitar we’re building is under lacquer and curing prior to buffing and all the complexities of final fitting.. however I can prepare some hardware, the pickups are in store for a custom set of padouk covers..
in the meantime there is a rare visit from my superior!
The carefully layed out holes are drilled
and a custom shape cut with a jewellers saw.
oiled and epoxied to the pickups.. I am a happy happy luthier indeed.
You can see most of these stock guitars, in this unfinished state, on the stock page of the site, we’ll be adding to the photo’s as the guitars come together, at any time you can reserve one of these instruments for yourself and to some extent dictate how they turn out, depending of course on what stage of the build they are at.. we try to be flexible here at Crimson Guitars.
Now, let the fun begin! The next custom guitar to be built is to be a small bodied acoustic. The birdseye maple sides we re-sawed last week.
Before they can be brought down to thickness the spiders are evacuated and a new length of paper is fixed to the drum.
The epoxy has cured and excess wax and glue is carefully scraped away from the pole pieces in out customised custom pickups.
Now, as is always the case I’ve spent several years tripping over this mould and getting increasingly frustrated with it.. when I actually need it it takes nearly an hour to locate!! Some slight adjustments on the bobbin sander.
And also to the mould itself, I’ve grown up since the last time I used this and a squared off heel joint is not good enough now.
One day I may even finish building this arch top I started for myself some 6 years ago!
The now thicknessed sides are planed to size on the shooting board with my number 7 plane.
And the mould is ready, complete with adjusted heel joint is ready.
The next stage is to make the end blocks.. of course I’ve created a rod for my own back in the 3d shape of the heel joint, oh well
On to to real fun part, the sides are bent using steam and a bending iron.
And are glued in, I was planning on making myself some threaded spreaders to help keep the sides clamped in shape but simply ran out of time..
Richard is in working full steam ahead on the stock(ish) range, the headstocks are all shaped on the bobbin sander.
And I start rubbing down another stock guitar.. I can’t wait to see this lacquer glossed up, although I’m planning on rubbing the back and neck down semi matt… thoughts?
Ahh.. ready for veneers, we’re nearly there!!
oh.. yes please!
This feels like a rather long and fragmented week in retrospect, but one promise I made in last weeks video blog was that I would get on with this elm bodied custom PAF guitar..
And so I shall. The fretboard is masked off carefully.
and, after leveling and profiling, each fret is polished and polished good! A shiny fret is slippery and just disappears under your fretting hand.
The fantastically figured Honduras Rosewood fretboard is oiled a few times.
Then it is on to the hippo ivory nut.. the fretboard radius is marked onto the nut.
It is carved and scalloped away.
and fitted.. I love the grain in this material, it sounds great too!
The tuners are installed next.
One of my recently developed pet hates is shiny black plastic, I’m not sure why? Anyway, the pickup surrounds are matted down with some wire wool.. it ends up looking not unlike ebony, a good result I feel.
The bridge and pickups are installed.
And a new custom guitar is born, with strings come life.
all my best,
Ben Crowe – Crimson Guitars