In The Workshop Recently......

We had this rather nice pair of Ibanez Jems in recently. The Stunning Blue model was in for a set-up, but the Black one had a strange

pickup selection problem. This was soon cured with a new switch (after a lot of head scratching ! ).

This single cut SE had already visited the workshop for a set up, but the owner decided that it needed a bit of an upgrade.

The machine heads were replaced with a set of locking Schallers, the bridge was also a Schaller item with adjustable saddles,

and the pickups are Bare Knuckle Stormy Mondays, with some new Black surrounds and a pair of matching Chrome Knobs.

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It seems to have been all Les Pauls recently in the workshop.

The Gibson on the left came in for a well deserved fret dress, and a new bridge to replace the worn original. And the rather

pretty Green Epiphone came in for a set-up, but this also needed some fret work to get everything straight.

We also had an Epiphone Les Paul Custom in for a fret dress, and we also changed the pickups for a pair of Mighty Mite

Motherbuckers, as the original bridge pickup was found to be lacking.

And finally, another Epiphone which had sadly sufferred a knock and needed a badly cracked neck/headstock repairing.

Some pictures from the workshop of the construction process,

click on the photos to enlarge................

Washington IV	What happens to all the left over timber that isn't big enough for customer guitars, build one for the boss!  Apart from the top and the fingerboard, all of the wood used in this guitar is from the off-cuts bin.
	Body timbers being glued together before being split to make a book matched pair.		Curly Maple top.
	Neck lamination glued up.		Body cavity initial shaping. The bottom will be cut out and used as the cover.
	body and neck glued together.		cavities in Maple top.
	Matched halves.		Fingerboard fitting.
	Stain applied.		Bookmatched headstock veneer.
	First coat of lacquer applied.
Lucky
	Ethos Guitars' first bass guitar with highly personalised twelfth fret markers		Front side body showing "neck through" and routing
	Rear routing with the smallest amount of wood removed from the body to retain as much tone as possible
Coronet
	Headstock being shaped, routed and drilled		The body takes shape, once more as little wood removed as possible
The Aphrodite
	The first Aphrodite underway		A lovely figured top and deep control routing
	Handshaped upper and lower bouts make all the difference		Some addition of colour
	Back with center stripe and control cavities. Note the deep heel cutaway for easy upper fret access.
The Washington
	This is after initial body shaping, and shows the intial component fit to check tolerances		Bookmatched headstock facing
	You can also see the smooth recessed fit of the selector switch and pots		The picture of the rear clearly show the neck-through-body construction and the excellent access to the upper frets.
	There is no visible gap under the knobs even when the pull switch is operated
The Pumpkin
	Neck Laminated from Maple and Walnut. Headstock drilled for machine heads.		Hand Carved Spruce top made from 2 matched wedges
	The neck-through body construction can be seen here with the Walnut centre stripe visible through the pick-up cavities.		Head stock faced with book matched Rosewood, single binding applied ready for scraping
	Sides fitted and top routed ready for binding.		Binding (made up from 3 separate strips) now fitted and scraped to shape.
	Book matched Rosewood back with centre purfling.		Finished Rosewood back
	Heel detail showing the center stripe		More heel detail aslo showing the depth of the binding
	Painted and ready for polishing, wiring and hardware.		Carved top with paint applied