Guitar Tops Joined and Cut

OK, so here we have the guitar tops glued together. The glue line is still very evident where it seeped out while drying. I glued the tops last week and had meant to get some pictures and post them, but I did not have my camera and I never had time to go back over to the shop until today. I took the tape off (learned how to use tape instead of clamps when gluing thin pieces of wood like this) today and drew the outlines of the guitars.

Next, I started cutting away and taking pictures. The band saw seems to be doing much better on these guitars than on the previous one or I am just getting more used to it. The thinner stuff cuts easier anyway, but even the body back pieces cut nicely. I tried to stay just outside the marker line to give me enough material to rout away with the templates and template bits. Some places I did better than others, but I did make sure not to cut too much out.

Here are some close ups of the Telecaster style guitars. The one on the left has more of a wavy pattern with some of the figure almost exactly following the shape of the guitar (at the top on both sides and along the bottom, there is one curl that goes across and then starts to go up with the sides) and the other is more of a fine pinstripe pattern. They both look pretty cool, but are very different. They are both considered to be 4A grade maple (out of a possible 5A). Some day, I will have to try some 5A or Master Grade, but for now, I just enjoy working with this as it has much more figure than my previous experience.

Here are the two Les Paul style tops. Both of these have a more pinstriped pattern. One the figure runs down toward the center and the other the figure is almost flat, but runs up slightly toward the center. They both have some spots that are not really well figured, but look like they will appear to be pretty deep once the finish is applied.

I was hoping to get to routing along the edges with the template router bit, but I spent too much time talking to my in laws and family and did not get that far as I had some other running around to do. Once I get that done, I will need to smooth out and sand the innards of the two chambered bodies and glue the tops onto the backs of all four guitars. Well, that's all I have for today. Hope everyone has a great Father's Day weekend (I know mine will be exceptionally fun as I have to work both Saturday and Sunday). Let me know what you think.

Thanks for checkin' up,

Aaron

OK A-RON...I GET THE PICTURE!!!!!!!

Here are the Pictures of Cory with his new Rugged Cross Guitar!
He is especially fond of the custom made skull tuning knobs!
The Skeleton hands were an ingenious touch of character.
Note the Fish on the fret board!

Thanks for the Great Guitar !

I LOVE IT!!

Cory

Catch up Post

OK, sorry for the long delay in posts. I did finish the Black Skeleton Strat guitar and it has been delivered to the customer and to her son for his 16th birthday. I have been told that he loved it and stayed up most of the night playing around with it. I have been promised that I would get some pictures of him to post on the blog, but so far have not recieved any (Lorri, if you are reading this, you know what you need to do!). Because of the first guitar, I have been asked to build three more and have had interest from several other people.

Currently, I am working on two Les Pauls and two Telecasters. One Les Paul and one of the Telecasters are going to be made of ash with maple tops and are going to be chambered (similar to semi-hollowbody). They will both have maple necks and a single coil/humbucker pickup combination. The Les Paul will have a humbucker sized P-90 at the neck and a standard humbucker with a coil tap at the bridge. The Telecaster will have a standard single coil at the neck and a "stacked" humbucker at the bridge with a coil split to retain the original look. The other telecaster will have a "Nashville" pickup configuration with three single coil pickups. I am putting a tremolo on this guitar (I am attempting to use the standard "ash-tray" style bridge with the bridge part cut off to use for the bridge pickup).

These three guitars will all have gold hardware. The second Les Paul does not have a customer yet, so I may just try selling it on e-bay or something, but it will have the standard electronics package (I may add coil splitting) and chrome hardware. Well, so far, I have recieved the wood for all these guitars and have started cutting on the bodies. I have routed out the chambers for the two chambered guitars. I still need to go around the bodies with the flush trim router bit and finish routing out the electronics cavities for all of them. Here are some pictures of the wood and what I have done so far with it.

The first four pictures show the maple tops. I have not decided which tops will go on which guitars yet, but here they are. The next four pictures are of of the body blanks, two ash, one alder, and one mahogany. The last four are of the body blanks with the body shape outlined in.

Here, the chambering process is begining and then the bodies cut out. First is the Telecaster and then the Les Paul.

Here are the two chambered bodies and then the two solid bodies. The Telecasters are on the left and the Les Pauls are on the right.

The first picture is of the two Telecasters and the second is of the two Les Pauls.


Well, that's all I have for now. Sorry some of the pictures are sideways, I will try to fix that as time allows. I will also post pictures of Cory and his guitar once I get some (or Lorri can post them herself). Let me know what you think. I sure am having fun doing this. I just wish I didn't have that other job to get in the way! Well, I guess the other job pays the bills and allows me to do this, so I should not complain too much. Well, thanks for looking. I'll add more soon (I hope).

Aaron

Bad Video, pretty good sound

Here is a poor video of my friend Nick Senn playing the guitar. It was compressed from almost 1 gig to under 100MB in order to get it onto YouTube (where I cannot find it without logging in and looking at my videos), but now you can hardly see anything but moving blurs. Anyway, the sound is what I wanted more than the video, but I could not find a way to only have sound posted. If the video does not work, I will just delete this post.



Well, the video works under the preview anyway, so I guess I will post it. He is playing through a Fender amp (don't remember which one though). Even though the video sucks, I hope that the sound is enough to let you hear what the guitar I have been working on sounds like. The guitar is now finished and I am just going to have a few more people play around with it to get some input on it. As always, thanks for visiting and feel free to leave comments.

Aaron

It looks really great! Jim Sturdevant saw your guitar pics. He wants to know if you do accoustics-especially the Ovation. He is really interested in the Classical/Flamenco guitars. Let me know.
Lorri

Its Black!

Ok, I said on the last posting that I had started painting the Strat and it still had more work to be done, but I had no pictures of it. Well, the first two statements are still true, but now I have pictures. They are not the best of pictures as I am having dificulties with the auto-focus focusing on something other than what I want it to focus on, but I have pictures none the less. I also took some pictures of what I think I will use for the logo on the headstock.

The first two pictures are just of the body. The first without the pickguard and the second with it.

Next are some pictures with the neck in place (not bolted on, but just in the pocket). The first picture shows it without the tremolo and the output jack and the second show it with them (once again, just placed on the guitar, not screwed in place). If you click the images to enlarge, you will see what I mean by the auto focus is not focusing on what I want it to. I may end up just retaking the pictures and replacing these eventually.

Here are a couple of shots from the ground level at a couple different angles. These actually appear to be fairly well in focus. You can see the nice neck joint and some of the "flame" on the back of the neck in these shots.

The last two pictures are of the RCG logo that I came up with. I basically just took a font from MS Word and used Adobe Illistrator to change the "R" so that it had a cross built in to it. Let me know what you think. The "decal" is overhead transparency film with the RCGuitars printed backwords (in outline form) and then filled in with gold paint and is just floating above the headstock, and will need to be trimmed, adhered to the headstock, and sanded down before I spray the final clear coats on.

Once again, please feel free to give me some good old contructive criticism/feedback. I really am interested in knowing what you think about this project and my guitars. Thanks for checking it out,

Aaron

Happy New Year! Sorry it has been so long since I updated this. I was hesitant to do this blog in the first place as I have never been good at journalling and always waited until the last minute when I had to do them for school. Anway, a lot has been done since I last posted. In addition to the guitar work, I have taken a new position in "real work" and just started as a pump tech at work this morning. I am just training at this time and am working seven AM to seven PM, but once I am done training and on my own, I will work one PM to one AM.

Guitarwise, I have finished shaping the neck, fretted the fretboard, done initial fret leveling and crowining, test fit all components and installed all parts including the strings and I even taped the output jack in place to make sure everything was all hooked up right. Most recently, I have spent time painting the body and working on the headstock logo. I also have done some more work on the SG that I started when I first started this guitar. Sorry, I do not have any pictures of the painted body yet or of the SG as I have not had the camera with me the last couple times I worked on them. Here are some pictures since the last posting, mainly showing the fretwork and the parts fit up.

The first three show the neck, the headstock with cross inlay in bone, and the bone hand and fish fretboard inlays.

Next, here are some pictures of the guitar with all the parts fitted to it. The neck is bolted on at this point, but everything else is just being held on by double stick tape to get an idea of how it will all look and go together. The first picture shows the guitar with the neck I have built and the second picture shows a picture I posted earlier with a neck from a different guitar, for comparison purposes.

Here are some closer up pictures of the body and neck.

Lastly, I have given the guitar a serial number, it's RCG ST0601. The RCG is for Rugged Cross Guitars, the ST is for Stratocaster style, the 06 is for the year built (started), and the 01 is the number. Since this is the first guitar I have built to sell, I'm sure that once I become rich and famous making guitars, this guitar will be worth millions!

As always, thanks for viewing my blog, I know some of you check it more often than I do based on some feedback I have gotten. Lorri, here's your update, so now you can show John and friends. I hope to have more pictures soon with the logo on the headstock and showing the body painted. Later,

Aaron