New Build Day.. Spalted London Plane DC

[Rabs]

Been a while since I did this...  again  🙂   I did start a post a while back about another London Plane build I was doing but that kinda stalled.. I will still finish that one but meanwhile I had this wood begging me to do something so I started a new one today with a stunning piece of Spalted Plane..

Warning, if you have not seen one of my build threads before.. Expect lots of gratuitous pictures of wood  😄 

Heres where we start.. 
 
First I pick out the bits I want to use and how I arrange them






And glue..  Titebond of course


Then while that is setting. On to the neck


Ebony fretboard shaped


Then glue and clamp the neck pieces


Then while that was drying.. Back to the body which I have now sanded down..  This is the centre line


And done.. YUM

Now for the neck..  Unclamped and all squared up




Draw the neck outline to cut

One thing I am not 100% sure about..  Ebony or Rosewood? The rosewood sorta goes with the walnut more but the Ebony goes with the spalting more.. I am thinking Ebony at the moment. What do you reckon?





And that is all for today... I realised I need a trussrod and some bits so I probably wont get back to it till next week now, so heres a couple more gratuitous shots   

Edited June 7, 2022 by Rabs

[jdgm]

Looks good!

I like the ebony.

[Sgt. Pepper]

That wood is killer.

[merciful-evans]

Ebony (yes, I'm biased that way)

Beautiful wood. Looks really good.

[Big Bill]

Oh man this is going to be a nice one! 👍

[duane v]

Is this going to be a 12 string? 

[Rabs]

1 hour ago, duane v said:

Is this going to be a 12 string? 

Lol, no, if you are talking about the long headstock, it just needs cutting down a bit (and some wings added to make it wide enough.

[duane v]

18 minutes ago, Rabs said:

Lol, no, if you are talking about the long headstock, it just needs cutting down a bit (and some wings added to make it wide enough.

The fretboard appears to be wide.... could be the images. 

[Rabs]

2 minutes ago, duane v said:

The fretboard appears to be wide.... could be the images. 

No.. Its 43 - 56.5mm wide... Well the Ebony one.. The Rosewood one wasnt shaped yet and they come wider so you can do what you want with them.

Edited June 8, 2022 by Rabs

[Notes_Norton]

Ooh! I can't wait to see the finished product.

 

You always do such nice work!

 

Notes ♫

[Rabs]

11 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

Ooh! I can't wait to see the finished product.

 

You always do such nice work!

 

Notes ♫

Cheers..  Theres a lot that can go wrong using spalted wood.. You have to be really careful how you cut it as it can be a bit fragile where the black lines are... One of the main things is to use sharp fresh tools and bits... It goes a long way to help with this.. Sadly some of it can just be bad luck.. So we will see  🙂

Edited June 10, 2022 by Rabs

[CNJ]

Rabs, that is absolutely some amazing wood.  I've always wanted to build one, but the only thing I get when working with wood is splinters.  Guess I'll stick to the electrical trades.  You will keep us posted through the build process, right? 

[badbluesplayer]

Awesome!  I like the rosewood board.  

[Rabs]

17 hours ago, CNJ said:

Rabs, that is absolutely some amazing wood.  I've always wanted to build one, but the only thing I get when working with wood is splinters.  Guess I'll stick to the electrical trades.  You will keep us posted through the build process, right? 

Cheers..  Actually I rarely get splinters BUT every time I go to the workshop I always end up  cutting myself somehow...

And yes of course I will post updates on this  

[Rabs]

By the way., If anyone was thinking the body is a bit thick its because I am going to carve the top...  At the moment though im wondering if I should just make it a flat top and thin the whole body a bit, carve it with binding or cos the wood is so spectacular dont bother with the binding at all.

Heres some I have done before as an idea

 

[mihcmac]

Wow, very very nice..

[merciful-evans]

You're right, I did wonder about the thickness. Probably safer to stick to the flat top, but nothing ventured...

[Rabs]

9 hours ago, merciful-evans said:

You're right, I did wonder about the thickness. Probably safer to stick to the flat top, but nothing ventured...

Yeah the issue there is that even if I did that.. Now the body is shaped there is HUGE risk of tear out or chipping on the edges..  So actually all methods come with their own risk with spalted wood. I think I am going to carve the top. The only question now is if I do binding as well... The thing about binding is as far as I know one of the reasons its used its to cover the joint between the back and the top wood. So in that way it doesnt need it BUT it is a feature a lot of people expect on a guitar.  Still deciding  🙂

[duane v]

Definitely do a cream binding

[fortyearspickn]

Binding -  tough call.  The right material / color could add to the body, like picking a frame for a painting or photo.  The wrong material / color could detract.  And, cutting the groove could lead to chipping, splintering, etc.   But,  I think the right shade(s) of cream would add to the beauty of the body. 

Fretboard - seems like ebony 'goes' better with the spalted body.  But, I have a hard time matching my socks to my bermuda shorts in summer. 

Keep this up and you'll have people beating a path to your door !  

[Rabs]

3 hours ago, fortyearspickn said:

Binding -  tough call.  The right material / color could add to the body, like picking a frame for a painting or photo.  The wrong material / color could detract.  And, cutting the groove could lead to chipping, splintering, etc.   But,  I think the right shade(s) of cream would add to the beauty of the body. 

Fretboard - seems like ebony 'goes' better with the spalted body.  But, I have a hard time matching my socks to my bermuda shorts in summer. 

Keep this up and you'll have people beating a path to your door !  

Pretty much been there and done that now. My business is pretty much done to be honest.

When I first started this in like 2012 the market was very different.. In the last ten years not only are there now more luthiers and home builders than ever before but theres also stuff like Harley Benton and many others now offering pretty decent quality guitars at really good prices..  When I started this I thought that doing guitars like the above would be enough to get people interested..  Let me tell you, its REALLY REALLY hard to get people interested these days.. Even when I use woods like the spalted plane. 

I have manged to sell most of my guitars now but its hardly worth it as a business any more. Still I really want to make this guitar. The first day I saw London Plane I knew I had to make a guitar out of the stuff 🙂  I may just keep it as a personal guitar. I have a Classic 57 and a SD Phat Cat humbucker sized P90 to go in this guitar and a lovely Schaller bridge.

[Notes_Norton]

Sadly, too many people use idol worship for their choice of guitars.

If so-an-so plays a strat, (substitute tele, LP, or whatever) and I buy one, I can sound just like him/her.

I have two Parker DF gitars. Far superior to a strat. (1) lightweight (5 lbs) but sustains longer than my 8 lb faux-LP (2) stays in all night tune due to Sperzel tuners, graph-tech nut and an almost straight string path from ball end to machine head (3) so perfectly balanced/contoured it's like wearing the guitar instead of holding it (4) better neck radius than Fenders - 14" compound (5) Duncan pickups sound great (6) piezo under the bridge can be blended with the mag pickups for some very interesting tones (7) hardened stainless steel frets will probably last for the rest of my life

Parker made some great guitars, but never made it to mainstream because Parker and later US Instruments didn't pay big stars to play one on stage or in their promo pictures.

Rabs, you need to get an endorsement from Clapton, Slash, Vai, or someone else big. Then you can make a profit with your beautiful guitars and enrich some players' lives.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[Rabs]

1 hour ago, Notes_Norton said:

Sadly, too many people use idol worship for their choice of guitars.

If so-an-so plays a strat, (substitute tele, LP, or whatever) and I buy one, I can sound just like him/her.

I have two Parker DF gitars. Far superior to a strat. (1) lightweight (5 lbs) but sustains longer than my 8 lb faux-LP (2) stays in all night tune due to Sperzel tuners, graph-tech nut and an almost straight string path from ball end to machine head (3) so perfectly balanced/contoured it's like wearing the guitar instead of holding it (4) better neck radius than Fenders - 14" compound (5) Duncan pickups sound great (6) piezo under the bridge can be blended with the mag pickups for some very interesting tones (7) hardened stainless steel frets will probably last for the rest of my life

Parker made some great guitars, but never made it to mainstream because Parker and later US Instruments didn't pay big stars to play one on stage or in their promo pictures.

Rabs, you need to get an endorsement from Clapton, Slash, Vai, or someone else big. Then you can make a profit with your beautiful guitars and enrich some players' lives.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Thats the thing.. Bigger companies than me have tried.. Its a really tough market to break in to..  To say the least... And really thats what I wanted to do.. It was never about getting rich from it, it was about making unique instruments that people can enjoy and make music on. But really these days its all about convincing people how for what ever reason your guitars are more special than the next.. Which is not what I am in to, all the social media and the BS that goes with it.. Its a shame, but thats the world we live in. 
 

[Rabs]

Wow.. Holy crap. I cant believe its been over a year since I did an update on this.. Where does the time go..

Anyway.. I started doing some building again over the weekend. Some of you may remember that LP Custom Lite style I started. Well the body for that one has cupped a bit since I last did any work on it. So I decided to have at think on it and instead went wit this amazing spalted Plane...  And that body is totally flat still..  So here goes.

 I got some good things out the way.. I did the truss rod channel and glued the fretboard on. Even though I didnt get any pics of it all glued up.






I saw this trick online for drilling the access hole. Just clamp a bit of wood over the hole (where the nut goes) and it stops you breaking through the top which is really easy to do as its only a mm or two thick there.




 
Then the control cavity




Then the pickup holes




Ohh and the recess for the back plate


This really is gonna be one pretty guitar..  Also I think for this one I will use my Gibson Classic 57 and Seymour Duncan Phat Cat P90 for the neck..  So it should also sound pretty bloody good too.

Anyway thats all for now. One of the man reasons I stopped for a while was issues with my hands which come and go. And indeed on Sunday night my back and hands were pretty sore even though I didnt really do that much. So this will be slow going. They are back to normal(ish) now so  I will get on it again soon. 

[Dub-T-123]

Looks like you have a nice sharp router bit and are cutting with finesse. I love the way the splalting looks in the cavities. I think it would be super cool to not shield the control cavity and use a clear backplate. Not even to show off the electronics but just to show how cool the wood looks from that perspective 

 

btw I totally understand the lapse in time in everything of course but it’s awesome to see an update from you