Well, we have a new forum. all is nice and shiny. Seems like an ideal time to have a look back over the years and what got me to this point.
I got my first guitar in 1994, I am one of those kinds of people that has to take things apart and try and figure out how things work so apart it came and i spend a long time trying to get it back together.
In the next few years i spent a lot of money on secondhand cheap guitars, including a nice little collection of shitty tesicos and a few matsumoko guitars and anything else that either looked cool or was cheap
Most of these guitars did not fare well through my uneducated, pre reliable internet experiments
then in 1998 i found Melvyn Hiscocks book and read it cover to cover a million times. I had much better internet and started finding some of the forums out there. Gradually my modding got better and better and i actually managed to save some of those older guitars. I also completed a couple of kit guitars
It took 3 more years of research and experiments, until I moved into my first house and finally had a spare room to make some real mess in
That's how i began. No tools, no woodwork experience just a lot of research beforehand
My biggest hurdle was getting wood. Back then it meant a trip to craft supplies. 3 buses, to get to craft supplies in Millers Dale to be told that the guitar wood store is 2 miles back up the road in an old farm... and the road back to buxton for my bus home was closed. So a 6 mile walk carrying some big chunks of mahogany to just make it in time for the last bus back to Derby all because I was determined I needed to hand select my wood for that first guitar
That's where we begin - time for some pics
Here is my first guitar:
The body was cut out by hand with a coping saw and rasped to shape. fretboard was slotted by hand after a lot of careful measuring and cutting I tried to get inventive with the scratchplate and laminated some veneer - terrible idea . I Invested in my first ever TV jones pickup and the result was playable. it played in tune. it sounded great. it was also about 14lbs as its 2 1/4" thick mahogany and slightly oversized, the neck shape was terrible and. Its also my first use of brushed on plastic coating which i used a hell of a lot back then. It was a good enough start to convince me to do more
And because i can never only be working on one thing i decided to mod one of my previous kit builds at the same time
i sliced off the top 1/4" of the body with a handsaw, planed it flat, added some chambers and a new spalted beech top
Comments
Instagram
Instagram
The 2 Firebird style guitars are giving me a Firebird chubby....
And the Explorer is sexy.........
Love the work Wez
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
Instagram
Instagram
Instagram
Instagram
Instagram
Instagram
Instagram
Instagram
Me seeing (and hearing the new owner rave about) the top one prompted me to commission the bottom one.
Absolutely no regrets.
Instagram
Instagram