First stages of Construction.

Here are some pictures I have taken of the progress so far. Sorry it has taken so long to get going on the pictures. The first ones I took about three weeks ago, but I have been busy with work and home projects and have not been able to get the pictures on the web. The latest pictures, I just did the work today and took the pictures and decided to publish them.


From the upper left picture to the bottom right picture, there is the front and back of the body blank with no cuts or template drawn on. Next is the template (backside) laying on top of the body blank (note that the blemish seen on the center (back) picture is outside the template). The bottom row shows the backside very rough cut after my initial cut (it is a new bandsaw and I have not got all the bugs worked out yet. Now the front and backside a bit more closely cut to the traced template marks. You can see where the recesses for the tremolo and electronics cavites have been marked as well as the neck pocket.
Well, I think that will do it for this post. I have changed the date on this to more accurately show when the progress has been made. I will do another post for the work I completed today (Oct 14th). Thanks for checking my blog.

Intro/Test Post

Hello, my name is Aaron Roush and I live in Portland, OR and have been interested in making guitars since high school (about 12 years ago). I have built one electric (Les Paul with set neck) and have started on an accoustic and my second electric guitar (all black Strat copy). I am going to attempt to keep the blog updated as the work on my guitar project(s) continues. The Strat copy will be my first guitar for an actual customer, but I hope to be able to support my hobby and continue building and learning the art of lutherie. This guitar is being built for the son of a friend at work and I got the idea of putting the progress on a blog so that she can see how the project is going without me having to bring in parts or pictures as I build them and so other people can see my work. I do not have an official business as I am still just an amature guitar builder, but I would like to market my guitars mainly to the Christian market, but anyone is welcome to inquire about building them a guitar. I chose Rugged Cross Guitars as the name for my "business" name to remind me of the importance of the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for humankind some 2000 years ago. I plan to add different Christian art, symbols, and scripture to my guitars and really want this to be a ministry opportunity for me. Well I guess this is all for now, I will add pictures and descriptions as I get them (I have just started cutting the body and have some pictures, but still need to format them for the web).

Thanks for visiting and hope you enjoy this blog.

Aaron