Curing!

Some pictures of the finished beveled armrest and after 12 coats of lacquer. Just waiting a couple weeks for it to shrink before finish sanding and buffing. Note there's always that ONE bug what wins the darwin award by landing on the finish......

Time for finish

Solariego #13 is officially in the "finish" stage. Two coats of epoxy pore filler and more sanding than my fingers would like to remember, and it's ready for shooting lacquer. Here are some pictures, the Waterfall Bubinga is going to be incredible under 12 coats of lacquer.....

Massive update on #13

Sorry, I haven't been good about posting updates this year. Too easy to put them on Facebook these days. Here's a bunch of pictures of this years Band Raffle Guitar, Solariego Instruments #13, "Frankie". Will be installing the top and back tonight! Then it's just a matter of binding, beveled armrest, and LOTS of sanding....

I've redesigned the articulated neck joint this year. The retention bolt is now high strength stainless steel and increased to 3/8" diameter. The heel now recesses into the body so there is no longer an unsightly gap. It looks MUCHO better.

2017/18 AHS Band Raffle Guitar

Construction has begun on this years raffle guitar. Materials: "Waterfall" Bubinga tone woods, Sitka spruce soundboard, Sappelle neck, Curly Koa bindings, Carbon fiber neck and body re-inforcements.

Finished pictures of #11

Here it is all ready for the Raffle in May!

Ready for finish...

Construction is finished, will be starting pore filling and lacquer sealing tomorrow.

Latest progress

Here some pictures of the progress to date. Back braced and finished, sides together, rosette complete.

The body should be assembled by the end of this weekend.

Pictures of the (nearly) finished neck

Installing the Carbon Fiber D-tube.

Last year, I used a Carbon Fiber D-tube embedded in the neck (instead of a truss rod) for the first time. This year I am using a similar product, but the heel re-inforcement (also carbon fiber) is a new product from DragonPlate.com that goes in at 90 degrees rather than 60 degrees as before. This allows me greater freedom in the shape of the heel.

Here is a link to a demonstration video of how the D-tube is installed:
https://youtu.be/kU6kbGhqSE0

For any builders amongst you, here is a link to the D-tube product: https://dragonplate.com/ecart/categories.asp?cID=130

This years materials...

In case you were wondering, this years guitar materials will be:

- Tonewoods: Curly Myrtle (from northern California)

- Others: Indian rosewood (fretboard, bridge, and bindings)

- Inlays: Re-designed musical notes in Mother-of-Pearl

- Soundboard: Sitka Spruce

- Neck: Fully articulated and adjustable neck with Carbon fiber D-tube "truss rod"

- Carbon fiber axial brace in the body

Stay tuned for pictures....

Kicking off the 2016 AHS band guitar build

A little late getting started here, but here are some pictures from this years (2016) raffle guitar already well underway. As you can see from the images, I've spend the last year and half building (and learning how to program) my own CNC machine for helping to do advanced guitar building. It's been a long (and steep) learning curve, but the results speak for themselves. These are some pictures of the neck being prepped and CNC'd.