NGD coming - A Feline Lion for my birthday

FelineGuitars

I've had this quilted maple capped mahogany body on the backburner for ages - a few years in fact .

It initially had a little movement in the mahogany - a slight cupping of the wood - so we put it to one side and let it rest for a few years, checking it periodically and after a while felt that it had stabilised. Looking at the beauty of the quilt you can see why we persevered with it.

We got it built up with all of the woodwork pretty much done.

So as I've had a free weekend I decided to push ahead a little further with it.

First I installed some inlays I had 

Work in progress:

Finally in

FelineGuitars

Next up it was time to get some frets in once the fingerboard and inlays were levelled and polished
As is usual for my own guitars I chose Dunlop 6000 wire - my personal favourite

I used my trusty arbor press for the first fourteen

I then had to switch to another method for the remaining 8 - so going old school to an extent we hammered them in, but also using Stewmac's "Jaws3" and superglue to ensure a snug trouble free fit (all of the frets are glued as well as using the barbs - my preferred route)

All done!

FelineGuitars

So next it needed some hardware and pickups.
I had saved a few of my favourite things and some parts that I wanted to try out.

Tuners - I chose the Graph Tech Ratio tuners - the ones where every string has a different ratio to ensure a more even winding rate - so no more twitchy winding experience on the G string and Low E.

Nut - as ever I went for the Earvana compensated tuning system nut (once you hear your guitar sound so much more in tune it's pretty hard to go back , and it requires nothing different from the player)

Bridge: a Tone Pros locking one (good experience with these, so happy to use again)

Tailpiece: a lightweight aluminium one (like I used on the 20th anniversary range - I feel it aids the top end clarity a lot)

Tailpiece studs: Some Tonepros split locking ones - holds the tailpiece 100% rigid - great resonance transfer in my opinion.

Electrics : some 500k CGE pots (like Gibson used to use - I often use the BKP 550k ones but I still have a soft spot for these and these are the last ones I had as CGE have ceased production). The caps are Jensen oil and paper ones - a 0.022uF for the bridge and a 0.015uF for the neck tone. These were wired in 50s wiring.

Oh - and the speed knobs go up to 11!

Pickups: At last I have a home to try out my BKP 10th anniversary set in
My colleage Tom has had his set in a guitar for a while and keeps telling me I'm missing out- so the time is nigh to try my set out.

Now to think about colour - I'm thinking of painting it the same colours as the blues and greens in the abalone. With all that quilting it should look like water on a tropical beach.

capo4th

A masterpiece thanks for sharing

TTony

That's quite nice ...

xwolf5150

Can we see inside the control cavity ??

FelineGuitars

Not yet but soon Wolf

the harness is neat but I think I need to deepen the cavities a whisker

ThePrettyDamned

Good god!

Quick question - when the frets are glued in, how easy/difficult are they to then replace when a refret is due?  I suspect that guitar will be played quite a lot!

Just asking out of interest more than anything

Arktik83

Argh I wanna see the pretty guitar but my work PC is blocking the pics!  

ThePrettyDamned

Arktik83 said:

Argh I wanna see the pretty guitar but my work PC is blocking the pics!  

I'll describe it.

It's a Feline.  It's that good.

FelineGuitars

Arktik83 said:

Argh I wanna see the pretty guitar but my work PC is blocking the pics!  

Now that makes no sense - how are they supposed to keep you motivated to work hard and earn money if you can't check out tempting things to buy

mellowsun

FelineGuitars said:

Now to think about colour - I'm thinking of painting it the same colours as the blues and greens in the abalone. With all that quilting it should look like water on a tropical beach.

From the photos, it looks great just natural. Or perhaps a transparent charcoal grey. But then my colour tastes are pretty conservative!

Arktik83

FelineGuitars said:

Arktik83 said:

Argh I wanna see the pretty guitar but my work PC is blocking the pics!  

Now that makes no sense - how are they supposed to keep you motivated to work hard and earn money if you can't check out tempting things to buy

I know!!  Btw, just seen the pics and that was worth the wait.  Looks awesome!

axisus

Absolute thing of beauty. Which is exactly what I expected. Lovely guitar.

luscombe

Beautiful workmanship. It's going to look terrific!

hubobulous

@FelineGuitars - That looks great Jonathan - how will it differ from your 20th Anniversary models? Will #9 start feeling jealous? ;-)

FelineGuitars

It sort of sits between the Lion Special and the 20th Anniversary - bridges the gap in a way

Unlikely #9 will ever ned to feel jealous........it's just too awesome!