Roberto-Venn builds: Acoustic, Blackmachine, Strandberg content

[9voltchicken]

Spraying the final coat of lacquer for my 6 string on tuesday. These weeks seem to be flying by.


This is a perfect example of hard way to fret a multiscale instrument. I tried to make a full miter box but it ended up being botched due to poor planning on my part. It took about 5 hours total. I'm still sore.


Fret slots are done at this stage and the fingerboard is registered.


Northern ash wings are registered and ready to be glued. The outline for the body is a bit light.

 

[jemfloral]

the fingerboard shown is for the strand? what is the scale length (low and high)?

 

[9voltchicken]

26 and 1/8th on the low B to 25" on the E. 5th fret perpendicular.

 

[hairychris]

Nice work! Very tidy inlays.

Loving the Vikmachine headstock. Plenty there to annoy the haters!!

 

[9voltchicken]

Thanks for the compliments!

Today I managed to get the body/neck perfectly flat and thicknessed to 1.5"





Drilled pilot holes for the string locks and routed the shelf.


Shaped up the bridge area and drilled the holes for the bridges themselves



Stringlock/headstock = done.

 

[mcd]

dude your builds are pretty awesome!

 

[9voltchicken]

It's been a busy week thanks to electives in the evening on top of normal classes as well as problems concerning the spray booth. Lots more progress!


Just before my final coat of lacquer. Hot damn.



Neck carving on Ouro has begun.



Figured I'd try for the no neck heel thing. It will be completely rounded later.

 

[jonajon91]

Jeeesus I have never seen such a shiny guitar!

 

[crowbar1115]

More please!! This thread is incredible!!

 

[9voltchicken]

Holy lack of updates batman!

In all seriousness I've been working like mad to get these guitars playable before Christmas break. That's three weeks. It does sound like a long time but there's a lot of lectures between here and there not to mention guest appearances and a repair course. Here's what's happened in the past couple weeks...

Learned how to wind pickups and what aspects of pickups change the sound. Jason Lollar was our instructor for the day.



Ouro has been fretted and is mostly good to go. Only needs the bridge holes re-drilled and some fretwork done. SO stoked!



Another elective I took was patina finishing hosted by Scott Walker. Basically we spray a bronze based paint on guitars and pour a mild acid on it to accelerate the aging process. Anyone recognize this guitar?


After the acid does its work most look something like this. There are other types of chemicals that produce different effects.

 

[Necris]

That patina finishing is awesome.

 

[dougk]

Scott is amazing.

What acid did you use if you don't mind sharing?

 

[skeels]

Totally make me look like a caveman.

Awesome!

 

[hardvalve]

Wow, love this thread, and sounds like a great school.

 

[9voltchicken]

Scott is amazing.

What acid did you use if you don't mind sharing?

I actually did two guitars. I used a mixture of everything (tiffany green, jade green, mint green, light green, steel wool) on a telecaster body to give it a junky look, and for the other guitar I used something called black magic which turns the finish a gunmetal black. I'm going to buff through the black patina around the edges to give it a worn look.

 

[9voltchicken]

Massive apologies for not updating this thread more frequently. There have been a lot of developments building-wise along with forgetting to take pictures along the way. Also, job searching seems to be eating most of my time as of late. If you're looking for a full time guitar tech (or know someone who is) let me know.


One instrument done! here are a couple of quick shots of my student electric. One of my classmates has some great photo equipment i'll use to take better pictures.



The Strandberg is pretty much together. Although it plays fantastically, I still want to thin out the neck a bit and take a bit more off of the arm bevel. I can do this later thanks to the oil finish I used. Overall I love this thing. I'm not sure if I like the pickups though.



Those of you who may be interested how my acoustic is turning out, Here it is almost completed. I just finished wet sanding and buffing this week. Questions and comments are welcome!










Less than three weeks to graduation. It's been an absolute blast and I wouldn't trade the experiences I've had for anything.

More to come.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Really nice work, man. I wish I could go to R-V.

 

[Webmaestro]

These are coming out fantastic

Is it just an optical illusion, or is the string spacing (down at the 1st fret) on the Strandberg a little wonky? Maybe the strings are just slack in the photo.

 

[TheHumanMeat]

I've posted earlier that i'm going to R-V this fall and love following this. What could you tell me about their wood selection? If I'm not mistaken I believe they already have wood available. I also have a pretty unique design in the works for when I'm there. How flexible are they on completely letting you design your guitar?

 

[9voltchicken]

These are coming out fantastic

Is it just an optical illusion, or is the string spacing (down at the 1st fret) on the Strandberg a little wonky? Maybe the strings are just slack in the photo.

Thanks! Damn man you have an eagle eye. The string spacing is a little off on the D and the G. I still have to make a nut for it somehow.

I've posted earlier that i'm going to R-V this fall and love following this. What could you tell me about their wood selection? If I'm not mistaken I believe they already have wood available. I also have a pretty unique design in the works for when I'm there. How flexible are they on completely letting you design your guitar?

Nice! You'll love it. Wood selection is pretty good overall. Always keep in mind for your student acoustic and electric they are 'industry standard'. Mostly maple and mahogony for the structural elements. Acoustics have a selection of 15 or so different woods for back and sides. same thing with electric tops. Electric shapes are very flexible. You can pretty much do anything you want within reason, although you won't be able to do funky headstock shapes I.E. blackmachine or parker fly replicas.

There is a list of specs and woods to choose from in the first post.