Yes more guitars and such

by | Jan 9, 2024 | Art, Music, Omaha Beach Diorama | 57 comments

I’m still building guitars for my spring breakout, which I’ll cover later but anyway I got a commission, yay. She wanted a Strat in French Blue and I asked why not just buy one? She wanted my work, I was humbled. I had never done a solid color guitar before but accepted the challenge. I like to lay down the color on the headstock so I get a sense of the color I’m dealing with.

Nice color

The body was prepped with 5 coats of white primer, sanded between coats, now was the nerve wracking point, paint.

 

I got so happy with the paint I started building and forgot the pics, it’s a good start.

and the finishing touches,

Now it’s time to set the guitar up. I start by installing my strings in an odd way. Low E first as it’s the heaviest then High E all the way up to A, this destresses the neck and lessens warping, remember this is a brand new piece of wood. Next is initial intonation, my chord lentgh is 25.5″ in this case so I measure from the nut to the 12th fret. At this point I use a castaway  E string and intonate the E position at octave, relative to the bridge, Once I find the sweet spot I set the entire bridge at the same distance, cut the test string off and then voila! more setup.

Now I pull out my fine tuners and begin,every string must be tested, detuned if needed and then tested again and every string effects the others. It takes about 3 hours if the guitar is close, on the other hand I have needed to pull a neck and shim it to work  at all, ah well.

                                                                                                                                 

I’m not done yet, this as well as my other things are studio bound, maybe I can get the La Jolla people enthused, next time we are green!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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About The Author

Yusef drives a Kia

Yusef drives a Kia

Punctually illiterate But never late

57 Comments

  1. ron73440

    That’s purty.

    I like the rainbow effect.

    • UnCivilServant

      Imitation abalone shell?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Yes, the real thing is far too pricey for me.

      • UnCivilServant

        Ah, baloney. They’re just snails.

    • R C Dean

      Concur. Very nice shade of blue, and fawncy guard plate is on point with that color.

      Always glad to hear you’re doing well, Yusuf. You had a helluva tough ride there for a few years.

  2. Sean

    Neat.

  3. Timeloose

    That blue really pops. Great work!

    Yusef, you need a nice logo to put on your work. The head on this Strat would be a great place for one.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      I agree,

  4. Ownbestenemy

    Nice work!

  5. Fourscore

    The skills and talents of the Glibs continue to amaze me. Maybe we can get Yusef to bring a guitar to HH, a couple others and a jam in the afternoon to keep some of the glibs around a little longer.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      It might happen this year, I’ll bring some toys,

  6. Ownbestenemy

    Might have to commission something with you in a near future.

  7. The Other Kevin

    I like your other work, but man, this is absolutely stunning. That abalone goes perfectly. My middle kid wanted a Strat this color at one time. But now she’s on her own and not talking to mom and dad, so she can buy one herself.

    • Lackadaisical

      I hope and pray she snaps out of it. Best to you and yours.

      • Fourscore

        One day there will be some communication like nothing ever happened. Seems to be tougher for girls. My grand daughters (3) broke with their parents and each other, covid opinions certainly didn’t help. Now the two youngest are talking to each other and their Mom, oldest is getting married soon and invited her sisters and mother to the wedding.

        Growing up is hard to do, both for kids and parents to realize. They want to be independent but hard when money is scarce. Most of us went through those times, I betcha.

      • The Other Kevin

        Thanks. I hope you are right and it’s nice to hear things do work out sometimes.

      • Lackadaisical

        I never had that, even with my siblings making really dumb decisions and my parents letting them know they were making dumb decisions they/we were never alienated.

        We never had any expectation of money from our parents, so that was never much of an issue.

        Now, my nieces are a different story… They all got brainwashed in public school.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Yes!

  8. Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

    Ernie Ball. God, a bunch of my friend back in high school worked for them. Some were able to score cool Music Man guitars and basses, some lost fingers on a forklift.

  9. R.J.

    Lovely work!

  10. R C Dean

    I’m curious, if you care to share: What do you charge for something like this, finished and delivered?

    Would a client supply the guitar, or do you get one for them?

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      It depends really, I could do either.
      My guitars start at around 700$ ready to play, with nice gig bag.

      • Urthona

        Ever do a Les Paul clone?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Not yet, I did a flying Vee and an Sg would look good. I’ll think a out a LP

    • Urthona

      Pretty sure this was Musk’s idea first and already a feature of Tesla.

      • Sensei

        Musk charged you to activate the back seats for a one time fee on his lowest spec model. Any of the upper trims came with it.

        BMW said hold my beer, let’s make it a monthly reoccurring charge on multiple models of all price ranges. People screamed.

      • Urthona

        I do think the fact that the Tesla console is just a PC makes me tingle a little. I bet it’s very hackable.

      • UnCivilServant

        “Was just letting the car drive along when someone started playing Doom on my console!”

      • R C Dean

        Grand Theft Auto would be amusing.

      • Sensei

        By physically attacking the CPU folks have managed to get root access.

        One of the more famous is:

        https://twitter.com/greentheonly?lang=en

        He disassembles the latest updates to give you a clue what Tesla may or may not turn on at some point.

    • Sean

      *shrug*

      BMW hasn’t been interesting to me in over 20 years.

  11. kinnath

    US judge in Trump’s election case subject of apparent ‘swatting’ incident

    Police responded on Sunday night to an apparent “swatting” call falsely reporting a shooting at the home of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge presiding over the criminal case charging former President Donald Trump with attempting to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

    The incident marked the latest in a string of “swatting” attacks nationally in which individuals have falsely reported crimes in progress to trigger emergency responses by police and get them to respond to particular locations.

    Both side playing stupid games.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      And stupid prizes

      • kinnath

        Nice guitar, before I forget again

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Thanks

    • Pine_Tree

      Or it was called in by a Prog as a false flag.

      Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of stoopid to go around on Trump’s side, but swatting and false flags are most commonly tools of the left.

      • The Other Kevin

        I would imagine a lot of people on the right are familiar with selective enforcement and assume they’d get the book thrown at them. But then again, some people are stupid.

    • DrOtto

      Maybe they’ll finally solve who did one of these now.

    • R C Dean

      Well, it won’t stop until both sides feel the pain. Nobody ever won a battle by unilaterally disarming.

  12. Tres Cool

    Excellent work, Yufus.
    But I did notice the knobs on the body- they only go to 10.

    • Sensei

      He just made 10 louder.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Good spotting!
      What Sensei said below

  13. Timeloose

    Is there a way to customize a standard instrument like a Les Paul or a SG to make it easier to play for someone with sausage fingers. Say increase the space between the frets with a longer neck then adapt the strings and tuning to compensate?

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      I would say yes, who would fab one is the question, I can research it.

      • Timeloose

        Thanks

    • R.J.

      I KNEW you were Price Charles!

  14. Mojeaux

    Went out to take XY to work. It’s days like these I’d give my eyeteeth for a manual transmission.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      That’s why I left MI,

    • kinnath

      Automatic is OK when mated up to AWD or 4WD. But I prefer manual.

      • Mojeaux

        Front wheel drive does it in a pinch, but I certainly wouldn’t drive my RWD auto truck in this shit.

      • kinnath

        The 350Z never sees snow.

      • Fourscore

        I’m not sure what the difference is, I had to go to 4WD in my yard today, F150 auto, snow wasn’t so deep but warm and slick. I wouldn’t trade for a stick. OTOH a stick would be tough for me to drive, one leg doesn’t work as well as it used to.

      • Mojeaux

        Well, for me, I like to use the transmission to slow instead of brake. In the nasty slick slush, it really allows me more control.

      • kinnath

        Manual transmission allows one to feather the clutch to help prevent the drive wheels from spinning on snow/ice/slush. It can be hard on the clutch, but it is better than losing control of the vehicle. It was pretty much the only way to drive rear wheel drive in the snow back in the old days.

      • R C Dean

        The tranny lever (hard to call it a shifter) on both our cars has a setting at the back that allows selection of gears (which I have never used).

        The FJ has 4WD (High and Low), including a locking differential if you are so inclined, so for getting unstuck you are least have a toolkit. It has gotten out of some seriously deep mud/ruts on a pretty decent incline. Won’t keep you out of the ditch if you drive like an idiot, of course.