Some might call me stupid...: Albers Guitars #51-60 and general updates

Its been a bit since I've posted. That might be due to it being so damn hot in my room. I can't even sit in here for more than 10 minutes without dripping sweat. I so want winter weather right now...I take that back...I want spring weather. Anyway...onto guitar building...

At the moment I have a few builds in progress as well as trying to finish up old projects. I'm trying to slow down the guitar building and focus on necks, but somehow I keep saying yes to to new projects. C'est La Vie...

So on the to-do list still:

#16. Zebra wood thinline -- Wow...this guitar seriously got the backburner. I started in in Feb 2011. Haven't done shit since. Maybe Feb 2013...

#25 Double Bound Sapele/Maple -- This poor guitar has been my experimental guitar and has taken a beating. Originally it was a full Sapele body. Beautiful grain pattern. But it was heavy as hell. So I shaved off 1/4" and chambered it. I only had some plain maple lying around so I bookmatched that maple and topped it. The maple was underwhelming and I thought it'd be cool to to stain it brown. It didn't work, so I shaved off the top a bit. Then I decided it would be my "sunburst" Guinea pig but had to shave off the amber. Then I thought a bound sunburst would be awesome and the amber went back on with the binding channels. At that point I had found that the lacquer company I use (Behlens) was owned by a company called Mohawk that was readily available around town. So since the amber was once again lacking of excitement, I sprayed it Vintage gold. Currently this is where we are at. I need to cut the neck pocket and pickup channels and glue in the top binding (the back is already done).

#26 Double F-hole Gretsch Thinline. My plan was to build it into a Gretsch Orange thinline with a Bigsby and Filtertrons. The other tidbit was that there would be no electronics plate/cover and that all electronics would be fed thru the F-holes. I lost steam on this one as I didn't have the Bigsby or Filtertrons readily available. I blame TV Jones. :) They're much more enticing than Gretsch FIltertrons and I was trying to save up to purchase them for this project. But that was before I realized I have too many guitars, so this might go on the "to sell" list...

#34 Rene's LP Junior. I've been dragging my feet on this one. I picked up some steam when I built a jig for a 4 degree neck joint. It's currently in the "sealer' and epoxy phase (burl maple top needs filling).

#44 Double back mahogany body. Originally this was a double back Redwood top/back body. But a what can only be described as a clusterfuck happened. The screw I was using to hold the template down snapped it's head off and the screw remained lodged inside. Redwood is an extremely soft wood so my digging eventually led to this enormous hole. I thought about doing a tremolo but that idea disappeared quickly. Since the back was already recycled wood, I didn't feel horrifically bad when I shaved it off completely. Thankfully the top wasn't glued on - that piece is still usable and fantastic looking.

I had a piece of mahogany and decided to resaw it and make a '69 mahogany thin line clone, but this time with binding (its my new thing--and I need tester projects). The different mahoganies look odd, so in order to tie them together I figured a nice cream binding will do. So at the moment #44 was previously a double redwood, but it is now a double mahogany thinline.

So that is the old stuff that needs to be fixed. I'm also working on the walnut/alder Pbass (#49) and the limba/purpleheart jazz bass (#47). I have a Mighty Might P Bass neck but the round of the neck doesn't fit. And on top of that it's not a Telecaster neck pocket. It might sit until I build my own necks.

Of the new stuff I have either finished or is in the works:

#51 Steve Smith Walnut/Maple/Mahogany double fhole thinline.

A custom one for a friend/former band member. He was originally going to be handed #26 (Gretsch thinline) but he wanted to dye it brown. I suggested rather than dying flame maple brown, that we use walnut instead, as walnut and maple were both bright woods. I showed him Jon Cook's Thinline and he loved it --he wanted one exactly like it. This wasn't a problem as the walnut and flame maple are Jon's leftover pieces from that project. The back is an awesome display of various grains of mahogany and after delivering this to Steve I was a tad jealous of the guitar. The Maple/Walnut combo for the top looks kickass as well. Single Burstbucker#1 and volume. Mighty Might Strat neck

#52 Alder Tele

This is a S/H (neck) tele. It was supposed to be an attempt at a double bound white binding on black body, but the primer grey I used was not that great.

Here was the second pass at removing the primer. So I thought it was my skill level in painting (usually is) but the primer went on horrible. I said screw it and painted it black. Now all the imperfections are showing through. This might require buying a heat gun to remove the undercoats...still on the postpone list...

Here is it's current state...finish date TDB...it got backburnered...

#53 Chris Judson Ash Thinline
One of my ebay contacts asked me to build his a Northern Ash thinline. I build two but this is one he ended up getting. The finished guitar photos are from Chris. The guitar looks awesome!

#54 Ash Thinline

This was the back up thinline from Chris Judson (#53) . It wasn't perfect so I built him another and decided this one it would become another binding experiment. Turns out the back of the other had a larger hidden crack running down the center. I took it to the drum sander and removed the back and bought some more ash to back it. At the moment it's missing the back, but within a few weeks I'll have it's back back on. Then, like the double mahogany, I'll add binding to hide the difference in wood.

#55 Pbass Redwood/Alder

Steve Smith enjoyed his Tele so much that a friend of his start inquiring about how to fix a laminated P bass body. I jokingly thought "yeah, toss it in the fire..." and suggested a complete rebuild of the body.

#56 Jim Patterson '69 Maple/ash Thinline

#57 Zebrawood Tiama La Cabronita

This one was mostly using up leftover tiama from the Pbass and creating an interesting instrument out of it. I had never done a La Cabronita style and I had just gotten my template for the tele control route. Seemed like a good time to try one of these out. The back plate was made form the same piece of zebrawood as the top.