CLC Newsletter - October 2011
October 2011
Hello again from the west coast of Ireland. I belong to a biker club where if any member claims to have done anything it is not believed unless there is a photo. No pic? It didn't happen! So none of you are going to believe that in September I swam with a seal in the sea next to our house or that Syra and I saw a pod of 40 or so dolphins breaking the surface off Brandon Point or that, about 15 minutes after this, we were privileged to see the very rare sight of 4 or 5 pilot whales swim by just below the surface. Normally pilot whales are only seen when they mass strand on the beaches and generally all die - they have done this on our beach in the past. So what can I find a pic of that you can believe in? Try these! During a recent bike trip with Geert and his wife Brigitte we visited the Strokestown Agricultural Show (in the rain!)
Here Syra and I discuss the merits of sheep while Brigitte keeps her distance.
And this is the prettiest cow at the event. The owner was combing the ruffles into her fur. It was actually very interesting to see how much grooming and pampering the animals got before they went to be judged - they could not have got better treatment in a human beauty parlour.
Tech Bit - at last the neck joint.
I thought I would show you how I make the neck joint on a solid body guitar. Most of my solid bodies have fixed neck, that is, the neck is glued into the body using a mortice and tenon joint. I also use bolt on and through neck types on various models. There are all sorts of arguments made about which type is best. I think any of the three will work well if they are made well.
To start I need to calculate the correct neck angle to suit the bridge height and then transfer this angle to the body top. This I do with a router and an adjustable jig.
Then the mortice has to be cut in the correct position. Again a jig and router are used.
I cut the tenon over size on the bandsaw and then trim it to fit using a chisel.
The tenon needs to be a good snug fit in such a way that the neck lines up for the bridge and the depth must be correct so that the bottom of the fingerboard sits on the body top. On a really good day this trimming to fit can take ten minutes, on a bad day it could be 4 hours! To test the fit if I can slip a 0.09mm (0.004") feeler gauge in any gap then it is not good enough.
Sharp eyed readers who are still awake may have noticed that the mortice and tenon are off-set 3.5mm towards the bass side of the body. This enables me to have more 'meat' on the treble side which I can carve away when the neck is glued in so making for easier access to the frets over the body.
Later in the building process when the neck is almost finished and the fingerboard is on the neck can be glued in place.
The rough joint is then blended in to a smooth, heel less area that will enable the player to get uninterupted access to the higher frets.
The finished joint before lacquering.
This was the article I had wanted to write two months ago but I got diverted! Let's hope it was worth waiting for.
If you have a topic that would fit into the Tech Bit slot then let me know and I'll try to cover it. Or write your own and send it to me.
In the Workshop.
One of the reasons that Geert and Brigitte made the (very wet) bike trip from Belgium to Ireland was for him to see progress on the 7 string ASAD 110 that I am building for him. It was at the stage where it just required the last gloss coats and it would be ready to finish. I was anxious for him to see the colour before I did these last coats as I was not completely happy with it. We decided to re-do the colour on the top which is quite a job as it requires removing all the lacquer back to the bare wood and then starting again. Being lazy by nature I got Geert to do most of the work while I gave instruction!
So here is the poor man putting on paint stripper and then scraping off the resulting mess. We then had to sand the top perfectly smooth again ready to accept the stain.
And here we have him rubbing on the black stain direct to the wood which has to be done very evenly to get the right result. And then you sand off the excess to get exactly the effect required. It took us (well mainly him!) a whole day to do this. When you have a beautiful and expensive piece of wood you should try to get the best out of it. This is how the body looks now with the final coats on. Nice piece of quilted maple.
The next job will be to polish the guitar and fit the hardware and I'll be doing this as soon as I finish writing this Newsletter. Look out for it in the next Newsletter. It has a lot of unusual features to fit with Geert who is an unusual guy! But he is not so unusual that he doesn't appreciate cake and coffee!
For anybody who has only seen the last couple of Newsletters it might appear that I only make electric guitars. As I build to order I make what customers ask me to. I build in batches of 3 similar instruments at a time. 3 is a good number to handle in the workshop space and working with similar instruments means that my mind only has to think in one way at a time - I am a man after all and therefore unable to multi-task! Currently I am working on a batch of 3 acoustic guitars that will appear in Newsletters in the future.
Robin Turner is a long time customer and professional musician. Robin works as a solo performer and has always been particular about his sound. I got an inquiry asking me how Robin got his superb acoustic guitar sound from a solid body guitar that I made for him. Well it goes something like this. The guitar has RMC piezo saddles which provide a very good and true signal that he then feeds into his Apple Macbook. Using Mainstage, which is part of Logic Studio (an Apple application), he can then EQ and process the sound to suit whichever room he is in which is then fed to the PA. When I first knew Robin he had racks full of amplifiers, processors, a mixer and a huge PA all of which required a large Ford Transit to carry it around. Now he turns up with his guitar, his Macbook and a much smaller PA in a tiny van. You can hear Robin's guitar sound here in one of his videos.
This is Robin's guitar.
It's an ASAP Solid. The outline is based on the shape of the ASAP acoustic with a cedar top and hollowed mahogany back. The RMC individual saddle pickups in the acoustic bridge feed into an on-board RMC Polydrive that makes this guitar MIDI enabled as well as providing the acoustic sound output. At the neck there is a magnetic pickup that works just on the E and A strings. This has a separate output which is fed to an octave divider so that when Robin is fingerpicking he has his own bass accompaniment. There are volume and tone controls plus extra knobs and switches for the MIDI output.
Last month I featured a video by Dom O'Driscoll. I have since heard from his wife Elaine that he has been unwell. I want to wish him the best in his recovery and hope he gets gigging again soon.
Finished this week was another solid body guitar for Jack Regan Kirwan. It's a sort of Superstrat thing with a carved top of flamed maple and a bolt-on maple neck. Simple, traditional hardware (normally such a guitar would have a locking trem which Jack did not want) and unusual pickups. They are Seymour Duncan Mick Thomson Blackout active humbuckers. They are the loudest, least subtle pickups I have ever heard. Couple these with a very low action and very responsive guitar and you have a killer instrument for heavy sounds.
Reader Article.
Nobody sent me anything in time for inclusion. Shame on you all. I'm disgusted!
So it could be you!
Why not contribute an article for the Newsletter yourself? Write a paragraph or two about something relevant and get a chance to shamelessly publicise yourself and/or your project in the Newsletter. Send your effort to me along with a suitable pic/video/soundclip/url/link, etc., and I'll see if I can include it (if I don't lose it). It does not have to be about how good your guitar is (even if it is!) but maybe something about a situation it got you into, a gig experience, the design and ordering process or anything related to it. Use your imagination! Or simply send me a pic of you and your Chris Larkin gigging.
Stocklist plug!
The Syra 3 pickup bass has gone to a good home so these are the instruments that I have left in stock in the workshop which can be bought now. Clicking on the image will open a page with more information and pics of that instrument.
Did I mention these are for sale? Here they are.
Probably not suitable for jazz but does like to scream and wail a bit with ridiculously low action. It is actually much more versatile in tone than the appearance might suggest.
Did you say jazz? then this is The One. It has 'that' tone when amplified and a sweet voice acoustically. And it is very pretty.
The ASAD 2HB is so truly versatile I'm thinking of asking it to write the next Newsletter. And it has a face of beautiful Irish maple.
All available now. More details on the Stocklist and you can contact me for other pics and details if you would like to know more. If you are in Kerry, call and arrange to meet with one or more of them and it could be the start of a long term relationship.....
And Finally..The Recipe.
With pictures for the first time!
Having a new member in the family from Venezuela has introduced us to some new food ideas. One of the favourites is the typical Venezuelan breakfast of Arepas. So this is Cristina's recipe for them. Highly recommended (addictive!) and worth the effort of searching for the type of maize flour used - it is available in specialist shops.
Venezuelan Breakfast
Arepas Recipe:
Ingredientes:
- Pan flour. Special Maize Flour from Venezuela. Half a package more less
- Water, 1 Lt. - Salt,1 tea spoon.
Preparation: Add the water to a bowl with the salt, afterwards add the flour slowly with one hand and mix all at the same time with the other hand, until you feel the the right texture, not too moist or hard in the middle. Leave for 5 minutes. Afterwards take some mix, roll into a ball and flatten and put into the pan for 5 min in medium heat and tour over for other 5 minutes. Finally ready to serve.
Arepas Fillings:
Open the Arepa with a knife and spread Butter inside of the Arepa. Then you can fill with
- Eggs
- Ham
- Tuna
- Cheese
- Avocado
- Meat
- Chicken
- Tomatoes
- Black beans
or anything you like!
Accompanied:
Venezuelan Drink: Papelon with lemon
Tropical Fruits juice: Passion fruit, Mango or Watermelon.
and Enjoy the delicious Venezuelan Breakfast!!!
And finally, finally....
The window in the office is just behind the computer monitor and offers me a great view of part of the garden. So good that I can gaze out and daydream when I should be doing office work. Part of the view is a beautiful web that fits right across the window, a distance of about 60cm (24"), which has been in place all summer. The owner I christened Boris and he is my pet spider. Since the window faces south the web gets regularly damaged by the storms and it is fascinating watching Boris repair it and sometimes seeing him wrap up any fly that gets caught in it. About ten days ago another resident of the garden, a large magpie, landed on the window sill and made a grab for Boris. In an instant the web was destroyed and Boris was gone, I assumed, to the Great Web in the Sky. I was delighted some days later to see the web back in place and Boris back in the middle of it. The magpie was quick but Boris was quicker.
Boris seen through the blinds. His body is about 15mm long and he likes flies! When I identified Boris I was disturbed to find that he was actually female. But I'm still calling her Boris.
And finally, finally, finally....
If you have any suggestions for the Newsletter please send them to me. If you think anyone you know might be interested in this Newsletter please send it on to them with their permission. If you do not wish to receive future issues please email me with unsubscribe as the subject and I'll remove you from the mailing list. If you are a new reader and would like to subscribe to get future editions please email me with subscribe as the subject or sign up on my website. There is an archive of previous Newsletters on my website.
