Corvus Guitar Works - builds, paint, mods/servicing, Cambs

Corvus

This one was built up from a custom-ordered body supplied, which needed some mods to get the electrics all in. And a Baguley neck. The body was prepped and finished in shellac. Did the main assembly and getting things to fit, the owner chose all hardware and did the wiring. It also needed a brass shim making up for the (brass) nut. Which was oddly narrow and not a great fit all round.

The finish idea was to show off the one-piece swamp ash with minimal colour change.

Quite hard to find somewhere to photo it, the plate and neck flash & glare so easily -

Corvus

Happy New Year one and all, I hope it's good for you.

Been a while and have failed to do pics & updates. Last year and some was a bit trying, we moved house and it needed plenty of work. Been living with missing lights, carpets, mattress on a floor. Trying to sort builders, work on the house, build up my new workshop. And then start open for work.

The last few months have been lots of long days & weekends. I've been doing builds, with some more workshop build/spray room build, and a fair lot of setup & repair work coming. Finishing at 9-10pm was normal, and full-on weekends with it. So just too busy and too knackered in the downtime to do pics & posts. Pretty worn out by Xmas time and the break was welcome.

The main house hassles are pretty much over so looking forward to this new year now.

Just as token pic for now, once again HNY folks -

webrthomson

Hey Bill @Corvus ;- Happy new year and I hope 2026 is less stressful than 2025!

Explorer is looking amazing

Teyeplayer

Happy new year Bill. Glad to hear things are starting to get back to a semblance of normality after the move. Hope the work-life balance returns soon too. 

That is indeed a cool looking explorer. 

Corvus

Ross, Jay, thanks chaps

BluesyDave

Did you get my PM Bill?

Corvus

I did Dave, not always in a position to answer same day but reply coming in a few mins - ta - Bill

Corvus

The workshop's closed from this Friday 27th till after Easter.

Corvus

Seen in Guitars but for completeness:
Rosses build, two-piece limba body with fabulous claro walnut top which Ross had hoarded away for a while.
Ovangkol & amara ebony neck, claro head overlay, CF rods. Ebony t/r cover with black base for a bit of definition.
Control cover is also claro from the top set.
6000-size s/s frets, Mick Thomson Blackout actives, 501 tuners. Special order CTS switch for max blackness...

The head has a shallow rake and altered angle for a much better string run for tuning stability.
7lb 13 oz.

Light-up side dots.

Corvus

Random pics
It's nice to get slightly less common things in to work on: a Dunable and Schecter seven:

Corvus

Dave's 70s Yam SA700 refretted. Very nice guitar, sounds great. The top has nice figure which I failed to picture.. looks like sen/ash but apparently is birch -

Corvus

Have to turn your hand to a fair few different things to keep going, this was my first goes at re-handling. Hickory & ash with purpleheart wedges (te boot sale planishing hammer doesn't get used on guitar things but needed faces tidying). Squarehead one came with a '60s car I had, was rough as a rough thing, 15 mins with grinder & sander sorted it

Corvus

I'm rubbish at doing new pics & updates but here's a couple of bits.

Another Alembic, a 77, came in for full strip & refinish and possible repairs or improvements to old damage.

But it turned out someone had epoxied in the middle pickup, so game over for refin. These are pretty much dummy pickups for hum cancelling. Alembic want ~£1500 a set and won't sell separates... the middles are supposed to be carefully matched and suchlike hence the money but I don't buy that (literally).

So limited to cleaning up, setup & bits, removing corrosion and mank from the brass hardware but not overly-shining them up.







This 77 control board is way simpler than the 76 I did, which needed rebuilding

Corvus

I'm thinking about opening up to refins again, but with some limits:

Bolt-on bodies & necks
Set necks if already nitro

If in doubt, do ask though - fire me a message or phone.

As before, 2k urethane or nitro either polished or aged.



Here's a Tele refin:

This is gun finish i.e. straight off the gun. Fairly self-chuffed because it was extra-fast catalyst and an air cap better for reproducing factory car paint orange peel. Wasn't all quite this flat but it saved a ton of flatting out: