Dom in Dorset

Remember my post on April fools day about making a guitar out of wood ash? A few people fell for it I suspect because it sounds vaguely plausible. I even started to think that there might be something in it myself. So to prove it one way or another I'm giving it a try on a small scale. I'm using ash from the fire pit that we used last night. After removing any large lumps or unburnt bits I added wood glue and water. Stir and leave to settle, not sure how long it will take to dry..... I'll get back to you.

I found time to finish the carving (I'll sort the heal and out when the neck pocket is ready) Side dots in I wasn't sure if I had enough abs rod for the side dots but I did... just

I've spent the morning finishing applying the binding on the travel guitar and made a start on carving the bass neck. As it's finally stopped raining and the sun is predicted to come out shortly I'm off out to enjoy it.

Shiny shiny, shiny frets of nickel....

Masking the fretboard ahead of level/crown/polish of the frets Masked and coloured with a Sharpie then a couple of passes with the levelling beam to get an idea of how much work I will have to do. Once I'm happy that the frets are level the tops are re blacked before recrowning. The idea is to leave a thin line of black down the middle of the fret. Levelled, crowned and sanded up to 800 grit ready for polishing It's one of the more tedious parts of the process. I'll polish them next week.

The cats woke me up before five this morning to let me know that they wouldn't survive until a more reasonable hour without food. I used the opportunity to get the frets in. I covered the tangs in wood glue to fill any voids left in the fret slots. I also added binding to the headstock, I'm trying a partially bound style. Dolly and Tammy on the brink of starvation

Guilty as charged. That particular build should be underway as soon as these two are complete.

If you hadn't already worked it out yesterday's post was an April fool joke. I posted it on several platforms and what I found interesting was how enthusiastic some people were about the idea of using wood ash to make a guitar. As a result I'm actually going to make a sample of "ashcrete" just to see what happens.... Meanwhile back in the real world -

Slight change of tack but I'm trying something new today - An experiment in extreme timber recycling.... building an electric guitar entirely from wood ash. I'd noticed that the pile of discarded ash from the fire when exposed to the rain turned into a clay like substance. I did a few experiments and discovered that the alkaline wood ash reacted with wood glue to form an incredibly hard yet light substance. I made a mold from cardboard and added the first layer of "ashcrete" , it will take at least three layers and a month to dry before it can be machined and turned into a guitar. Watch this space...... The thread title seems more relevant than ever!

Not denim but you'll like them when you see them, maybe tomorrow.....

Fretboard sanded, frets cut and epoxy poured.

The binding is on the double denim bass. The curves are about as tight as the maple binding can cope with before breaking. I might even get the next hit of epoxy on tomorrow.

Hi, It ground to a halt when I hit problems getting the epoxy to form a consistent layer. It looked great until I started sanding and then the denim was exposed. Someone on Instagram suggested a solution (a bleeding obvious one that just hadn't occurred to me at the time) to apply the binding and use that as the dam to give the fill level. At that point I got distracted by an acoustic (ish) travel guitar that's also ground to a halt due to problems with finishing the sides. After flying for the first time since about 1983 I decided that it would be good to have a guitar that could be dismantled and packed into a suitcase. This project was intended to be a quick one so I used a body and neck that I fished out of the scrap box. It has turned out to be prettier than I expected and so I'm taking more care than I originally planned.The body was a prototype Les Paul semi hollow mode from poplar and asit was just to test ideas and templates wasn't made with any great care. I've added a strip of veneer around the edge to tidy it up but this now means that I will have to double bind it. The timber used for the soundboard is Paulownia from a pallet.

I'm in a band that bar a twenty year hiatus has been together since 1990.

Doing it properly means neck screws from Screwfix. Hopefully they blew the budget on turbo gold.