Churchland Guitars Build Journal 2021

D. Churchland · #1 02-27-2021, 03:03 PM

2021 has been a pretty good to us so far. I haven't been able to start or finish any guitars just yet since the wife and I finally were able to close on a house in the country. We'll be moving in fairly soon but the house will mean we'll break out of the rent race and finally be able to have a place we can make our own.

That being said, I have a few ideas of guitars I want to build this year, maybe another jumbo and possibly another Grand Western, who knows really but I'm excited to see what this year brings.

Guitar wise this year saw me accomplish a 10 year goal in the acquisition of my dream guitar which is a 1946 J45. Since that's been accomplished I have been playing alot and loving every minute of it. If anyone wants to see it I'll put up some pics, it's pretty beat/patina'd but I love it.

Anyway, once the builds start again I'll post up some more ideas/progress pics of what's going on. It'll be easier to do this in one thread rather than keeping multiple threads going I think.

TomB'sox · #2 02-28-2021, 08:47 AM

Congrats, I bet one of the stipulations here was not more building guitars in the dining room!!!! I hope you have room for your stand alone shop now!

D. Churchland · #3 03-02-2021, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TomB'sox

Congrats, I bet one of the stipulations here was not more building guitars in the dining room!!!! I hope you have room for your stand alone shop now!

Thanks Tom! Yes that'll be a big part of the new space. I now have both a 2 car garage and a separate room that I have free reign over to do everything. The standalone shop might be a future thing in the back but we'll see.

Right now I'm just excited to have space to make more than 1 guitar at a time haha!

Guitars44me · #4 03-02-2021, 08:13 PM

Congratulations on the new home! And SHOP, too...
Great you scored a sweet old Gibby, as well.

Hope to see it and some of yours here real soon.

Salud

Paul

D. Churchland · #5 03-06-2021, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guitars44me

Congratulations on the new home! And SHOP, too...
Great you scored a sweet old Gibby, as well.

Hope to see it and some of yours here real soon.

Salud

Paul

Thank you Paul. We have to get everything unpacked but I'm already planning my building/assembly layout for the guitars. Exciting times!

D. Churchland · #6 03-29-2021, 04:47 PM

Well phase 1 has begun. With everything settled down and all the boxes unpacked (we really don't have that much) I have been thinking very strategically about how to get the most out of the space that I have.

I have become very much a fan of the concept of keeping the tools separate from the area where the work is being done. Reason being is that many of us keep tools up on the wall, and unfortunately if a single lone sharp tool decides it's going to fall from it's place on the wall then a spruce top doesn't stand much chance of surviving.

So the first task is to organize the space and then do a built in workspace with a tool wall, workbench, and a glue up bench separate from the space where the parts are cut and assembled. Think of it as a micro-factory of sorts. The advantage to the glue up bench being separate is that it's just a space to store components like sides/tops while they're being glued together instead of taking up an actual work space where I can be working on the next one.

With the advent of the new space I have decided to give batch building a try. Maybe 2-3 at a time of a given body style. This will mean that I can't spend as much time on a single piece but it will make me streamline the process and hopefully to be able to offer consistent guitars to multiple folks at a time. In the apartment it simply wasn't possible to have more than 1 guitar in process at a time. We'll see how it goes. Stay tuned for more soon.