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  #31  
Old 02-10-2021, 09:59 AM
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I've had to split my time finishing another guitar the past week or two but I'm inching closer to buttoning up the woodwork on this one. As with the rest of the guitar, the "timeline" theme continues on the headstock with material collected by the client over his lifetime (everything except the maple purfling strips). First up is routing out the "background" for the design...




Filling it in with ebony...





Routing and chiseling out the middle sections (the central white line is elk antler)...





Gluing in the bordering strips and filling up the top section with some crushed coal from Wales...





The next section is fossil from a stone gathered from one of the great lakes...





A little bit more cleanup to do but pretty much done!





And of course with a hidden magnetic truss rod cover...





Thanks for looking!
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  #32  
Old 02-10-2021, 10:16 AM
Nemoman Nemoman is offline
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Looks amazing, Mike--great stuff!
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  #33  
Old 02-11-2021, 08:00 AM
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This is such a cool project, I can not believe the amount of detail you are putting into this for the client. It is going to be one of a kind for sure and amazing to own.
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  #34  
Old 02-14-2021, 06:46 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nemoman View Post
Looks amazing, Mike--great stuff!
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Originally Posted by TomB'sox View Post
This is such a cool project, I can not believe the amount of detail you are putting into this for the client. It is going to be one of a kind for sure and amazing to own.

Thanks! It's definitely the most custom build I've done for someone and it's great to see how excited the client is with the process.


Unrelated to this build but since this is my main thread at the moment I thought I'd mention that Tom Sands just put out a video podcast where myself, Tom, Dion James, and Joel Michaud chat for a little over an hour. Might be of interest to some of you!

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  #35  
Old 07-16-2021, 09:02 AM
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After a long wait I'm very excited to have this one back from the finishers and can't wait to get it strung up! I want to have it sit in the shop re-acclimating over the weekend before I really dive back in but I thought I'd share a couple shots just to refresh everyone's memory.


First, the headstock has a satin finish on it and I just love the way the "grains" of the crushed coal come alive...




The thing I was most anxious about was how the magnetic cover for the pickup would work after the body was finished. It took just a little bit of (expected) tweaking to get everything fittting but I'm super pleased with how it works!





With a quick 20 second video showing it in action...





For me this was a bit of a proof of concept and I think if/when I try this again, I'll make a strap attachment that can quickly thread onto the pickup so it can be used standing up (and be even more secure than a standard strap). My client for this build specifically said he didn't want to use a strap so it wasn't a consideration.

Thanks for looking and more soon as I button this one up!
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  #36  
Old 07-16-2021, 10:28 AM
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Looking great, love the cover and the idea of doing something similar for the strap button, great idea!
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  #37  
Old 07-21-2021, 07:49 AM
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Looking great, love the cover and the idea of doing something similar for the strap button, great idea!

Thanks Tom! It was a fun little addition and I'm sure I'll have even more fun playing around with it and expanding the idea in future builds.


While the guitar is getting used to the shop humidity again, I spent a couple of days finalizing the bridge. First job is to touch up the arch on the bottom of the bridge. It was initially sanded to a 25' radius but over the couple months during finishing both the bridge and guitar change ever so slightly. Instead of trying to find out what specific radius I need to match, I take a 5/8" piece of plywood, stick some sandpaper to it, and place three shims underneath before clamping it to my bench. By changing and moving the shims around, I can quickly adjust the radius and match it to the top...





The inlay for the bridge will stick with the "timeline" theme I have on the rest of the guitar. As mentioned earlier in the thread, almost all of the material for this guitar comes from meaningful points and places in the client's life and I wanted to emphasize that idea of a life story. Here's the bridge part of the way there...





A little farther along...





And for reference you can see how it's sticking with the theme of the rosette...





And fully inlayed with quartz and a line of elk antler...





More soon and thanks for looking!
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  #38  
Old 07-21-2021, 11:11 AM
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Oh boy that quartz and antler really put it over the top for sure! Fantastic work.
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  #39  
Old 07-22-2021, 10:34 PM
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So awesome, such detail! That magnetic cover just blew my mind. Looking forward to more updates and eventually getting my hands on an Indian Hill!
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  #40  
Old 08-17-2021, 10:26 AM
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I finally got this one all finished up and handed off to the happy new owner -- it was definitely one of the more elaborate and time-intensive builds I've done but I'm so happy with how it turned out! There was so much time and focus spent on the aesthetics but thankfully it also sounds great. Full rich cedar-y goodness and a delight to play!

Here are a couple of final shots...

















Thanks for following along with this one!
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  #41  
Old 08-17-2021, 10:50 AM
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Beautiful work. I love the way all the themes work together.

Johhn
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  #42  
Old 08-17-2021, 06:00 PM
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Beautiful work. I love the way all the themes work together.

Johhn

Thanks! Almost all of the material was gathered by the client at different points in his life and I thought a timeline-ish theme was a good way to incorporate a lot of disparate elements into something meaningful and hopefully pretty!
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  #43  
Old 08-17-2021, 06:42 PM
Nemoman Nemoman is offline
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Looks amazing, Mike--great stuff!
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  #44  
Old 08-18-2021, 04:13 AM
MThomson MThomson is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IndianHillMike View Post
Thanks! Almost all of the material was gathered by the client at different points in his life and I thought a timeline-ish theme was a good way to incorporate a lot of disparate elements into something meaningful and hopefully pretty!
I think you're free to remove the "hopefully" from the above sentence in the future. This is lovely work and I bet it means the world to it's new owner.
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