vixen 4

vixen 4, a photo by Peters Instruments on Flickr.

vixen four is under finish and will be ready for polishing soon.

I seem to have spent more time organizing the shop and making new tools and jigs over the past couple weeks than I have building, but I am finally starting to make a little headway now.

after clearing most of the wood with the forstner bit I cleaned up the hollow of the body with the router.

sanded down the bookmatch and got it glued up. This is some of the nicest quilted maple I have seen in any of the lumber yards around here.

Here it is wet down a little to show the figure.

I salvaged parts from a small old craftsman dupilcater, and some tooling in a machine shop to make this. Its not a clean finish by any means but it sure knocks out the bulk of the work in a hurry.

Today I started hollowing out the back side and voicing the top. This one already has a complexity of tone that I like. As the planer blade glides across it you can really hear it talk to you.
 Here is my little depth gauge.

I really like the way this one is shaping up so far. More to come!

More progress on Vixen #4

Starting  to make a little headway. Today after much fussing with the bandsaw, and installing a new motor I was able to do some resawing and get the billet ripped for a top. hopefully I'll have it thicknessed, joined, and sanded down before long. 

New Guitar in the Works: Vixen #4

This guitar will be based on my Vixen body style and will be semi hollow, the body and neck are both from mahogany, the top will be quilted maple, and the fretboard will be EIR. more photos to come 

More progress on the offset avenger.

Update on the Offset Ranger and Nomad

The Nomad is officially under finish. It will be about a month for it to gas off.

Progress has also been made on the Offset avenger. The carve is cleaned up, the fretboard has been inlaid and glued on, the neck carve and heal carve are completed. The pickup and electronics routes are also in.

Progress on the offset avenger.

I have made descent progress recently. The body is assembled and I have begun the task of carving the top and rounding the edges. The carve has been roughed in, but is still very unrefined. I have also roughed the rounded edges with the router, but I still have a good deal of work to do with the rasp to clean them up and even them  out. Very soon I will be inlaying and installing the fretboard.