Bedemir & Galahad - 2 Larkins

[MisterE]

Juplahoi iedereen,

enkele maanden terug had ik een nieuwe bestelling voor Chris larkin klaar:
een soloist model, archtop, neck through.

Dit zijn de specs:
Customer: Geert Annys (VSP)
Quotation/Update/ date: 04.03.14
Model Type: Soloist carved top Bedemir model
Body Timber: Mahogany or fiddleback sycamore (stained brown) or something else
Top: Lovely quilt as supplied
Colour: Black cherry
Pickups Type & Position: TB4 black in bridge, middle to be decided, Sustainiac at neck
Switching / Circuitry: Vol/piezo volume/Sustainiac intensity/5 way selector/2 mini toggles laid out as Strat.
Graphtec Acoustiphonic pre-amp.
Bridge/Trem Unit, Type & Colour: Graphtec Ghost LB63 black
Neck Timber: Neck through design. Laminates of finest flamed maple with veneer details.
Neck Profile: Flat C.
Fingerboard Timber: Ebony with white binding and those lovely 7 string type inlays!
Fingerboard: Camber 16" Frets type and number 22 Dunlop 6110 (Fender bass type)
Scale length: 25.5"
Machines, Type & Colour: 6 Schaller M6 bottom locking 6L, black
Comments / Customising: Schaller Straplocks.
Fingerboard width 43mm for the trem nut.
Black pickup rings.
2 side outlets.
Larkin headstock. Faux binding?
Voor de top van deze gitaar had ik het volgend stukje hout gevonden:


Nadat ik mijn bas aan m'n zoon had gegeven, besloot ik om er eentje te laten maken door Chris.
Dit zijn de specs van de bas:
Model Type: 5B CONTOUR BODY
Body Timber: Poplar
Top and back: Quilted maple
Colour: Gloss AC lacquer, cherry burst.
Pickups Type & Position: Larkin/Armstrong humbucking pickups.
Switching / Circuitry: Mag vol (pull for passive), mag blend, bass, mid and treble, mini switch for mid frequency select(Aguilar active),
Stacked dual concentric for piezo.
Bridge/Trem Unit, Type: Hipshot A,
Colour: brass, gold.
Neck Timber: Laminates of flamed maple with carbon fibre, mahogany veneers between. Two way trussrod
Neck Profile: Narrow (47-70mm), slim depth.
Fingerboard Timber: Rosewood.
Pearl custom markers.
Fingerboard Camber 16"
Frets type and number 24 X 6110 Fender bass frets.
Scale length 889MM/35" Machines, Type & Colour 5 X M4 gold
Comments / Customising: Contour body, Dunlop Straploks, case.
Het hout voor de top van de bas:

Ik had mijn e-mail naar Chris begonnen met; "I have a plan, and it involves wood"
Dit deed Chris denken aan een scene uit Monty Python & The Holy Grail waarin Bedemir zijn plan uitlegt voor het bouwen van een houten konijn en dat hij, Galahad en Lancelot vervolgens uit het konijn klimmen...
(Chris & ik zijn beide grote Monty Python fans)

Zo kwam het dat we besloten om de gitaar Bedemir en de bas Galahad te noemen.

In de komende weken zal ik het verloop van de bouw van deze instrumenten posten.

[MisterE]

En zo begint het:

I spent three hours looking at wood and trying to work out the best way to get the look I wanted for the through neck and eventually decided the right way to go was to have 4 x 20mm wide pieces of flamed maple with three 3mm stringers of mahogany.

So I cut up the maple…

…and laid it out ready to glue it.

[stijnkenens]

Cool.

Bring it on !!!


s.

[MisterE]

First I glued up the through neck sandwich.

Then I cut the pieces for the bass neck and glued them up too.

I then selected some poplar for the bass body,

marked it out and planed it. Then I spotted some hairline cracks which just went into my marked body (the redline) area in that piece so I scrapped it.

So I started on a second piece of poplar and when I planed into that a dark coloured area appeared so I scrapped that piece too. You can’t see these dark patches until you plane into them.

The third piece, I was able to plane to size without a problem.

On the quilt for the bass overlay I marked out and cut out a piece suitable for the headstock overlay then trimmed the remainder to suit the body shape.

[MisterE]

On the bass side of the body there needs to be an section removed for the arm relief.

This is smoothed and the overlay bent to fit over this. How I did this is a secret! Well I could tell you, but not the organisms.

Je vraagt je waarschijnlijk af waar de term "organisms" vandaan komt.
Ik had de bouw van mijn eerste Larkin gepost op sevenstring.org
Vandaar dat Chris het steeds over de organisms heeft

The overlay was then glued to the core for bass and treble sides.

[MisterE]

The sandwiches for the through neck and bass neck have been tidied up - the figure is good.

The headstock for the bass is wider than the shaft so I cut out a piece from the sandwich that would become the headstock and glued ‘ears’ to it to get the required size.

[stijnkenens]

Je ziet dat die man ervaring heeft met wat hij doet, als je het wat in de handen hebt, dan vlieg je door zo'n bouw.

Weet jij hoeveel instrumenten hij ondertussen gebouwd heeft?


s.

[MisterE]

Ik denk in de 30+ jaar dat hij bezig is dat hij er meer dan 700 gemaakt heeft.

[MisterE]

Blijkbaar had Chris enkele bezoekers, één met een perfecte 1954 Gibson L4 archtop en, enkele minuten later, iemand met een Dyer harp guitar

After my visitors left I heard a strange hissing sound in the workshop. I couldn’t see any snakes ( perhaps St Patrick missed one?) so I investigated further to find the water drain valve on the compressor tank was leaking. It took a bit of messing around but I was able to fix it but at the expense of working on your instruments. In the time that was left I planed the joint and glued the bass body halves, cut a section from the through neck for a headstock, dimensioned it and glued on the headstock veneer and did the same for the bass headstock.
Who know what will happen today? Life is a mystery!

[MisterE]

Ik heb de twee stukken hout voor de tops gevonden bij Holz Fascination, Duitsland
Chris liet me een tijdje terug weten dat het dikste stuk te dik was voor wat hij nodig had en stelde voor om een plak af te snijden en dit kon dan eventueel voor een later project gebruikt worden.
Ik zal dus verplicht zijn om volgend jaar weer een gitaar te laten bouwen
Chris moest vooraf twee stukken van de zijkant afsnijden om later te gebruiken voor de binding. Hij wilde de afmetingen weten van de gitaar die ik voor volgend jaar in gedachten had - een '84 G&L interceptor.
Ik was iets te laat om zijn e-mail te beantwoorden.
Dit is wat hij schreef:

I’m trying to find the name of the limited edition guitar that you have so I can get dimensions and know how to cut the big slab of quilt so that a slice can be used for one in the future. I’m terrified to cut this piece in case I make a mistake (of any kind!)

ChrisBandSaw.

Hij ondertekend zijn mails altijd met ChrisZusEnZo warbij de zusenzo altijd betrekking heeft tot het bericht.
Vervolgens schreef hij:

Dear TooLateTwin,

I made an executive decision. I overcame my fear of the dreaded quilt and I cut off the edge of the pieces for the binding which left 180mm and I think this will be enough for any electric guitar. So no need for any ruling on your part.

ChrisDecisive.

Hij noemt mij zijn jongere tweeling omdat we dezelfde verjaardag hebben. Daarbij hebben we dezelfde (absurde) humor, delen een passie voor motoren, chocoladecake, wijn en hebben nog heel wat overeenkomstige karaktertrekjes, ideeën en principes.
We zijn dit te weten gekomen toen ik hem een b ezoekje bracht terwijl hij mijn sevenstring aan het bouwen was.

In de volgende mail schreef hij:

The Lovely Syra didn’t force me to watch any football tonight possibly because there isn’t any.

Dear Doctor. I had this irrational fear of cutting this piece of quilted maple that was causing me anxiety and sleepless nights until now when I decided it was time to get my chainsaw out, put on boxing gloves, a blindfold and attack it. And you know it was not so bad and my life has taken a new and happier path and my creative consciousness has been re-awakened. Thank you for your advice and support. ChrisPatient.

So, as you know, I cut the two edges off the quilt which will be used for binding and then sliced it longways to make it the correct size for the guitar top and this created another 6mm top for another job at some time.

Then I did a rough layout of the through neck on the neckshaft by comparing it to a number of bits of other guitars all of which feature in some way in your Conspec. This actually took a lot of thinking because there are a number of technical difficulties in doing this guitar and I need to be sure that I had covered them all before I did any damage.

After all the thinking I was able to mark up the neckshaft with component positions and other critical bits.

Then I did a rough layout of the through neck on the neckshaft by comparing it to a number of bits of other guitars all of which feature in some way in your Conspec. This actually took a lot of thinking because there are a number of technical difficulties in doing this guitar and I need to be sure that I had covered them all before I did any damage.

After all the thinking I was able to mark up the neckshaft with component positions and other critical bits.

Now I knew what bits of the neckshaft I needed and what bits I didn’t. So I cut those off which made quite a bit of expensive firewood.

Now I knew what bits of the neckshaft I needed and what bits I didn’t. So I cut those off which made quite a bit of expensive firewood.