Back to Business

 It all started with a phonecall. Our landlord wanted to meet us (my wife and me) to talk about something he did not want to talk about on the phone. Hm. He later explained, sitting on our sofa sipping a cup of tea, that he would divorce his wife and she wanted to get our flat. So we'd have to move.
We had a really nice flat. We liked our flat. It had a 25 square meter roof terrace and all the wood construction on display like a small loft. It was OUR flat!

This led to some weeks of research and looking at flats to find something new. Which we did, in a miraculously short time. And we've found something cosy and charming and we are happy again. 

Moving flats is such a time consuming business and it led to some weeks without internet in which I couldn't write new posts. I happily returned to the workshop. And to the internet.

So let's get back to guitar making. I'm currently preparing to exhibit at the 3. Internationales Freepsumer Gitarrefestival.
This means by September the guitars will have to be finished. Last week I worked on bridge prototypes and fingerboards. For the bridges I decided for a string through bridge for one of the two guitars I am currently building; which got the name "The Buyinga" after I wanted to write Bubinga somewhere and made a mistake. But I guess that's the way names develop sometimes. Through mistakes.

 

Above you can see the inside of the Buyinga right before closing the box. As you can see I glued a lot of strips on the sides which helps to keep the sides staight and I think, but this is only an personal assumption, it has tonal advantages in keeping the sides more rigid. 

As you can see in the next picures I've done the bindings which are executed quite simply with decorative purflings only on the tops. I like the simplicity and the contrast of the reddish bubinga sides and backs and the light maple bindings. Routing the chanels for the bindings was quite a bit challenging because Bubinga has a strong tendency to warp when you're bending it. As I don't use a bending mashine for bending the sides I need do be very cautious and take good care to do a good job bending the sides correctly.

 Headstock and neck shaping.

Here's a look at the instrument with a fingerboard and a bridge prototype just layed on to check the looks.