Day 8

Frettin 'bout fretting

Day 8 (yesterday) started with a monumental hangover. Must have been something I ate . . . .

Not a good day to start the most delicate task to date, getting the fretboard curved to the appropriate angle, cone-wise, and cutting the frets at exact points that reflect the teutonic, platonic, pentatonic (whatever) scale. Eff that up and its a tuneless lump of wood . . .

6 degrees of separation (or curvature)

Scouting for frets . . .

Past the point of no return . . .

Eric's fretless bass made this an easy day for him! Mostly drilling and routing cavities, jack holes and knob recesses . . .

Eric routing . . .

Eric's cavity . .

 Eric's jack hole . . .

Eric's knob . . .

Seems it worked out though. Even managed to hand carve a piece of seashell for the octave inlay - decided on a Formentera lizard - why not?

PRS body taking shape . .

Paella and great Spanish Chardonnay for lunch followed by a swim at Mitjorn (Pagesse for Midday apparently!) beach facing North Africa.

Day 9 starting soon. Uno mas cafe solo . . .

Day 7

On the seventh day we rested (!) and partayed with the local peeps . . .

But this stuff must be strong. Either Eric has some weird shit in his garden or I am hallucinating . . .

Guest quarters at Casa Eric. Don't fall in the pool - Its empty . . .

Evening time at Casa Eric . . .

I thought Gaudi lived in Barcelona?

Trabajo Manana . . . .

Day 5 and 6 and a half . . . . .

El Bloggo - the drama continues . . . .

We had our first disaster on Friday, but luckily we were both just observers. One of the other inmates, Christian, is making a Gibson Les Paul Smartwood, which has a semi hollow body. Partly due to a little over routing in the cavity (sounds painful . . .) and partly due to over-zealous use of a compressed air gun, we had an exploding guitar situation. Having made a perfect cover for the electrics at the back and having pressed the perfect fitting cover into the recess, of course he couldn't get it out! Naturally resourceful, he took the compressed air gun and thought he would get the cover off by using compressed air on the small hole on the front side designed for the pickup selector switch. That is when we heard the rifle shot, or what we thought was one. We assumed someone was the victim of a drive-by, and looking at Christian, it seemed he was the unlucky target. Standing in front of him on the vice was the guitar with half the wood at the back of the guitar split open . . . . . Deep despair . . . but luckily the professor had a smart solution. By Saturday you wouldn't know there had been a problem.

Friday and Saturday morning was spent primarily with more rubbing, bumping and grinding. Then more rubbing. The guitar bodies are really coming on despite this . . . . .

How do you like your fingers? Thick or thin sliced?

More sound and music theory was explained as we cut the fretboards and made the delicate hole for the 'nut cover' (don't ask). But so far, no personal disasters . . . .  See Eric's nut cover below (or avert your eyes now . . .)

Sound and music theory . . .

Several people have asked about the special dietary regime need for such an arduous mental and physical ordeal. Having been in training for some time now, our dieticians have prepared a rigorous allocation of nutrients worthy of Olympic athletes. The prescription is detailed below, but don't try this at home kids! The specific quantities should only be taken under medical supervision . . . . .

There is a repeated misconception that we are in the island of Fuerteventura. No, we aren't. That is in the Atlantic somewhere  . . . We are in Formentera, just south of Ibiza in the Mediterranean and east of Denia in Spain, see mappa mundi below . . .

Purely by chance, there is a commercial on at the movies in London right now for one of our special medicines and it is all shot in Formentera. Check out this link, its a 2 minute guide to the island . . .
Estrella Commercial in Formentera

On Saturday lunchtime, we broke up for the weekend and more rubbing, bumping and grinding. Better break out the ointment . . . .

Hasta Manana . . .

Day 4

Ola! Que tal?

Day 4 and the pace picked up. Big day for potential screw-ups. Serious precision required to build a guitar neck that will actually play real notes. 95% chance of a major cock-up in which the guitar will play nothing but a series of a-tonal farts. Luckily, we have decided to focus on the positive and are going for the 5% where the strings actually sit above the fretboard and play real notes. The professor (any likeness to later photos?) gave us an education while we drank beer . .

Eric has decided for the easy way out for construction, but the hard way for playing. He has decided that his will be a fretless bass (think Mark King of Level 42 if your mind goes that far back!).

Lots of guitar terms that I have never really needed to understand when playing are becoming much more clear now. The truss rod (a piece of metal, not a command) was cut in steel and threaded at each end, and then bowed for tension. The front of the neck channelled delicately to get an adjustable and fixed nut inserted at either end. Then we fastened the truss rodd to these nuts and inserted in the channel, and covered with soft wood to avoid any metallic buzzing in the eventual instrument.

I have never really thought about it, but the strings on these guitars will have a tension of about 80 kilos (nearly 200 lbs) and all this pressure applies to the neck. The steel truss rod is in the middle of the neck to counteract this, with thew adjustable nut to bring the neck back into alignment against all this pressure. Some delicate channeling, routing, grouting, pouting and flouting (I didn't get all the real terms . . )

Jeez, I needed a feel cold ones just to combat the fear of getting this wrong. Get the truss rod wrong and you start the whole thing again! Here is Eric adjusting his truss  . . .

Getting the exact measurements for the neck onto the wood was frustrating. Its bloody difficult getting distances to 0.5mm precision marked out on a grainy wood and ensuring the lines really are what you want. Once you cut it, you can't put it back on! The good news was that to choose my optimum neck widths I had to spend an hour playing various guitars to find which was best for my style and hands. I chose wine bottle width . . . .

It all seemed to work out, although after an excellent lunch of rose and red wines and some stunning pollo al horno with ginger, orange and apple, I had a little siesta in the hammock and waking up was hard . . . .

Back at the ranch, I decided to buy an old Harley to complement the new guitar . . .

In my spare time I routed (or is it 'rooted'?) the cavity for the electrics. Have to be careful to take account of further shaping on the front of the body which will cut away a lot of wood at the sides in flares. Dont want to end up with a hole in the front! But its starting to look like the real thing . . .

This island is famous for its lizards and pretty much all the local designs incorporate them. The lizards are all over the place in the shade, but they are pretty friendly but not very musical. Perhaps one of these will find their way in to the guitar design somehow . . . .

A few people have asked if the logo picture above is actually what I am trying to build. Its broadly the same model but my mental picture is more like this  . . . .

 Hasta luego!

Day 3

It is only 'Day 3' but already we are starting to feel like Himalayan mountain climbers. The objective is exciting but its going to be a long journey and there will be days when we wish we could give up.

Each day that goes by raises the risk that any mistake will send us back to the beginning, not fatal but certainly would be a big setback . . . .  And the repetitive, boring tasks are the most dangerous in this respect.

Finishing the workshop at 10pm every night means that eating and drinking doesn't start till 10.30pm, and becoming accustomed to these southern European ways, we need at least five hours for that!

And, we have to get up an hour before we go to bed . . . . (I think that was Monty Python or Peter Cook/Dudley Moore) . . .  So the mornings are a sombre affair . . . .

Day 3 was a lot of detail work on the guitar bodies, sanding, rasping, shaping, more sanding . . .

I found the wood for my guitar neck and completed the tricky task of getting the headstock angle set and cut. Sounds simple, but there was some serious geometry involved (see photo).

Although not difficult, it was one of those moments where you knew it could all go 'Pete Tong' . . . . (or 'tits up', if you prefer).

At the four hour lunch break we hung out by the only pool in San Ferran, 50 meters from the workshop, in the hotel that most of the other inmates are staying at. A basic little hostal, opposite the wonderful Fonda Pepe bar and owned by the same family. Quite a nice break in the heat of the day when you have been covered in sawdust all morning. Several San Miguel's and some playful banter with the other 6 made it a very pleasant interlude.

The class is made up of Martin and Christian from Germany, Marcel, Jo and Roland from Baden/Zurich region in Switzerland, and Luc from Luxembourg. Eric, being an American/French/German/Spanish/English mongrel, is the group thesaurus. My african heritage adds to the cosmopolitan feel . . . .

The other participants are the security guard team, 'catto' and 'doggo' (or similar . . ) . . . Tough job!

Eric is into the shaping of the body of his bass, but I havent really started that bit yet. So we downloaded a photo of a PRS body to Erics iPad and viewed for a sense of the scalloping required to get a violin shape (photo).

;

The workshop ended with a little blues jam with the the 'professor' on bass, and we had a laugh with a blues boogie . . . .  He is quite a jazzy bassist . . . .

So now, uno mas cafe solo,