Day 18

The first to emerge . . .

Two hours sleep is not recommended when trying to work long days with delicate judgement required, but that's rock 'n roll . . .

An amazing thing about Formentera is the night sky. Driving back from the workshop in San Ferran, we saw the bright lights of Ibiza, with the whole coastline lit up! Looking south from Ibiza town, you can see a few twinkling lights of Es Pujols and La Savina as a  contrast. But with almost zero ambient light at night in Formentera, the clear sky is an amazing spectacle with more stars than you have ever seen, including shooters, the Milky Way. It is difficult to explain, so here is a great photo from Casa Eric last night . . .

Well, it is pretty hard to take a photo of the night sky . . . .

Yesterday morning was hard. We are were all hungover and tired, and the first job was to finally sand the newly oiled guitars with the finest paper I have ever seen, but wet with the oil. Feeling a little dodgy, the pervasive smell of linseed oil was not the best thing for the delicate stomachs . . .

Many fiddly things were done. I went through the painstaking process of sanding all 22 frets so they are all in perfect alignment, then ensuing they all had a proper curve at the top, and then rounding off each end from every direction. Agh, I'm feeling dizzy again just thinking about it.

More fret sanding, then fretboard oil, then steel wool, then polishing, and now it feels and looks beautiful . . .

But it's picking up bad habits already . . . Yes, that's Hierbas and Absinthe . . .

I worked more on my pickups, drilled a hole  for the earth wire (never even realised there was one!).

A little more rubbing and oil sanding to remove the last few blemishes and slightly soften the front endges of the body.

During this time, Eric did his nut!

 

Eric also seemed to enjoy the rubbing and oil sanding more than most!

 

Lunch was fitful hallucinatory sleep, but I felt better for it!

Eric waxed his pickups, after experimenting with a 'back, sack and crack'. He had trouble walking later . . .

 

I worked on my bridge and hammered a few things which made me feel better . . .

Eric's bass beast is looking good . .

 

Later in the evening the first guitars were born. First Roland with a stunning Toro, complete with strings and electrics, and he plugged in and we got the first music from his newborn. He is a happy man.

 

 

Next up was Christian with his beautiful Gibson Les Paul Smartwood which looks and sounds stunning. Unfortunately the camera battery had run out so this is what it looked like just hours earlier . .

 

Big pressure for us tomorrow (today). We hope to complete ours . . .

Watch this space . . .

Day 17

Grinding our nuts . . . .


‘It’s flooding down in Texas’. . . Well, I have no way of knowing, but it’s certainly raining in Ibiza, but it’s another beautiful day a couple of kilometres south in Formentera!

Yesterday was another memorable day. My pickup coils are wound, and we progressed to ‘nut theory’ and the ‘grinding of the nut’ (wasn’t that Shakespeare?). This is another seemingly minor component of a guitar that I never realized was so delicate. The things I have done to my other guitars to make strings sit better, apparently, don't bear thinking about (I had better check them when I get back!).

The nut is the bit the strings go over/through at the headstock end of the fretboard. This was painstakingly measured, attached and then further measured with precision for the setting of each string. Then each nut ‘groove’ needed a precise tool to saw it to an extremely specific depth, but different for each string. Then the top of the nut had to be ground down until each string groove was as deep as it is wide. Considering the top string is 0.2 of a millimetre, that is some judgement required! And there was more . . .

I also set my bridge . . . .

Battle scars and blood injuries . . . .

Eric 'Juan Nut' dedicated himself to further routing of his cavities, setting his bridge, finishing his pickups and inspecting his nut.

After lunch there was a frenzy of rubbing as we had to prepare for what had been explained as the night of the ‘midnight oil’. Having determined we would, like Wilson Pickett, ‘wait till the midnight oil’ we weren’t quite sure what we were watiting for. However, we were warned this was the last time we could sand or otherwise smooth the guitars.

We worked until after midnight, with pizza and red wine on the hoof, when at the appointed time, we were all presented with a pot of hot oil of linseed, turpentine and Hierbas (well perhaps not . .). This was generously applied to the whole guitar, cavities and all, with the exception of the fretboard. Yep, they look pretty good!

After the ritual oiling, we retired to the bar next door to await the professor, Eki, and his band perform downstairs at the El Mocambo.

The band was excellent. Eki in fine bass form, Alejandra of the previous evening’s fame, local guitar player Jose (pretty damn good Stevie Ray Vaughan style blues-rock player) and ‘Barry the tub thumper’ (well, that’s not his name, but he played the drums).

Two great sets! I was requested to sing the now famous ‘Hierbas Blues’ where the lyrics change every time, but you can get the general idea . . .

Martin and Roland also performed two great cameo guitar appearances with the band.

We drank (Hierbas of course) and sang till 5am, with a final nightcap in the bar as it closed.

We were back home in bed by 6.30am. The alarm went off at 8.30am.

I’ve had better mornings . . .

Back to the office now . . .

Mas tardes!

Day 16

Music under the trees

Another beautiful day in Formentera. Bright blue sky and warm. Strong breeze from the west. Ibiza is covered in storm clouds but it is beautifully clear here. Since we have no mountains, any clouds just skid over us and the colours are amazing!

Yesterday morning we gave birth to complete guitars as we unclamped the fittings from the previous night. They now look like proper guitars, almost!

I resolved my previous frustrations with my ability to wind bobbins and created two fine pickups for a deep bluesy tone on my guitar. 7800 and 10500 windings respectively . . .

Screwup number 10 (actually I can no longer remember the number of mistakes I have made) became visible when I started to set the pickups in position on the guitar, and then realised I had routed the top of my fretboard to meet a twin humbucker pickup at the neck, but had changed choice of pickups since then. Fitting these P90's in the standard way would have left a nasty gap between the fretboard and the neck pickup, so the Professor came up with the ingenious solution of building our own custom pickup covers from rosewood, the same wood as the fretboard. So we routed these and the cavities. Very delicate half a millimetre accuracy stuff . . . .

Later, due to unavailability of the Professor (Christian, of 'exploding guitar fame, managed to drill two holes right  through the back of his beautiful Les Paul Smartwood. It is becoming more and more of a semi acoustic!), I took matters into my own hands and drilled an unscheduled hole. But it's in the right place and seems to do the right thing!

Eric spent the day routing the top of his neck in the appropriate shape to get the style of the bass and positioning of the pickups.

Eddie Van Halen (Luc's guitar) . . .

Before lunch, Luc sent me an unfortunate photo he had taken the previous day, where I was posing Chico, Eki's little dog and security guard, atop my guitar for a 'cute moment'. Sadly, the angle of this photo tells an entirely different story . . .

Eric and I had a pleasant lunch at Can Forn, although brief by Formentera standards.

We had agreed on a mere 90 minute lunch break to allow us to finish at 6pm so we could return to Casa Eric for a BBQ party with the rest of the crew. I marinated Pollo Formentera, chicken breasts infused in a magical concotion of olive oil, white wine, Hierbas, garlic, chilli, ginger, rosemary and local frigola herb. The resultant barbequed chicken worked out pretty good.

We ate and we drank under the trees at Casa Eric, and were regaled by the velvet voice of Alejandra from Buenos Aires, who is visiting the island (via Mallorca) for two days for a gig tonight (tomorrow? I am losing track of days . . ) with Eki. Wonderful voice, and an acoustic set which ended up in everyone having a few songs on one of two acoustic guitars with Eki thumping out on the big old double bass. A lot of fun.

Hierbas continued until late . . .

Then bed . . .

Bon Dia!

Day 15

Baptism and Union . . .

Yesterday was a busy day. Firstly, more rubbing of the body and neck to get the finish as smooth as possible.

Drilled a couple of holes for more electric wiring and strap knobs and Eric was was once again discovered routing his cavity . . . .

The bass is taking shape . . .

Then we descended on Mitjorn beach again for a fine lunch and then the baptism of the bodies in the salt water of Mediterranean. As well as being a fun ritual, it helps the wood expand to fill any tiny blemishes and raises the grain so the fine sanding results in total smoothness. But mostly it's a laugh. The local nude sunbathers were less than impressed with our exuberance amongst them. Apparently, nudity is a serious business on Mitjorn.

Nice salad . . .

Gambas al ajillo . . .

Pasta marinara . . .

Bodies on the beach . . . .

Christian starts his sun salutation . .

I think I will oil the guitar body rather than lacquer it, both for better sound and because the wood is pretty cool . . .

Then at 6pm we returned to the workshop and I started to wind my pickups. P90's (I have no idea either, except they help with a bluesy and warm feel) with 7800 turns of fine copper wire on the neck pickup and 10500 turns on the bridge pickup. However, I made a complete hash of it and wound several thousand turns in the wrong place. Had to start again. Eric was enjoying this, as he had a similar experience of bobbin frenzy the previous day. Deep depression . . .

Then in a frenzy of creativity we fitted all the necks last night, quite a delicate process to ensure alignment and a tight fit.

Didn't finish at the workshop till 10.30pm and returned home for a bottle of red and a light dinner.

We are hosting a BBQ tonight for the crew so I spent 20 minutes marinating chicken in Guindilla (chilli), Frigola (local thyme), local Rosemary, fresh lemon zest and plenty of garlic and ginger. That should kill any lingering viruses!

It is much less humid here than it was on the first week, and we even had a 20 minute rainstorm one night.Its a little cooler in the evening, but still 30 degrees Centigrade in the shade during the day.

Got up this morning and we drove to the office . . .

Hasta Manana . . .