Blogs

Although the ideal day to turn 42 is probably May 25th, January 15th was OK.  New year, new age, new look on life and new twist (get it?) on guitars for me.  I've had more guitars come out of the workshop in the last few months than ever before and I love them all.  I've made some of my best instruments and most inspired creations lately.  Still may not compare to other people's work in some ways, but this is my best stuff for me personally so far.  And honestly, that's all I care about.

All the guitars I make now go up for sale on my website badfingerguitar.com.  If they sell, great.  If not, then I've built guitars that I love and will love to keep and play.  They all get adequate "testing" in the shop during my breaks and I'm not compelled to rush them off the bench so if I need to spend time getting them where I want them, that's OK with me.

The CBN website hasn't been kind to me uploading photos the usual way when I use my Google Drive storage.  For some reason all the aspect ratios get screwed up during the upload.  I decided to add some of my recent stuff as a Blog instead.  If you want to see more pictures, surf around my website.  I promise there won't be a furniture store salesman following you around.  If'n you just wants to browse, that's fine with me.  Any ideas you get there are up for steal except my twisted headstock (please).  Otherwise, if you see something that inspires you, give it a try.  I've certainly taken at least my share of inspiration from countless others who are generous here on CBN.  

I sold two guitars to my friends at Wicked Parrott Tattoo in Kill Devil Hills, NC a couple weeks ago.  They hang on the wall over the client computer station with a cool blues painting.  Clients sit here with the artists going over images as inspiration for original work.  I don't believe the shop has these two priced for sale, but I will put a couple more guitars on the wall as consignment by the Spring.

On the left is Black Scorpion and I carved a scorpion into the headstock.  On the right is the Royal Cardioampliphonic Recompensator with a built-in Honeytone amp and speaker.  I like really unique sound the way I mounted the speaker inside the deep MDF box.  I preserved all the Honeytone connections and hardwired the Humidor Guitars Thinbucker directly to the amp PCB.  The guitar can double as a speaker cabinet if you plug a different guitar into the 1/4" input jack.

This is Black & Blue.  I dyed the maple neck to match the Camacho box and added some pearl dust to make it sparkle.  Sealed up with Tung Oil.  Humidor Guitars made the 5-pole Thinbucker pickup for me.  These are great pickups.  Nice and hot with great tone.  I love this guitar.  I have a dozen or so of these Camacho boxes in different colors.  I started painting the headstock of these black and I love the look.  I have a cool plan for the next one.  :)

This is a Farmyard Relic that I really enjoy.  The story behind this guitar is that I found it floating down the crick.  It had a decomposed hand attached to the neck, but it cleaned up real nice. Its name is "The Old Hand."  I used a zero fret and it has beautiful low action and I love to play it.  Tuned GDg with 42 32 24w gauge strings.  Just enough tension that I can slide even with the low action.  This is a hammer-on machine!  Individual volume control on each pup and a 3-way LP style switch.  Take a closer look at the tuning machines too.  :)

The control knobs are from a piece of wood I pulled out of the ground behind my house.  I thought it was just a stump spike, but it is probably an old fence post from when my neighborhood was a cow pasture.  On the drop-off behind the house is some of the old farm dump with rusty metal and broken glass around.  Probably some guitar treasures back there.

I put up a Workshop Videos page on the website.  There's a nice long one there on how I make my necks.  

Here's some new stuff that is in progress:

I'm making sort of a sweetheart, pinup, peepshow, steampunk mashup guitar and I decided to make some custom control and jack plates for it.  I'm using a Deco style rod piezo bridge from Mojobone Works and one of Elmar's Original Flatpups that I've had in a box since 2013 just waiting for a guitar.  Dual volume and a LP style 3-way switch.

I am also making yet another Sawzall Box Guitar.  This one is a metal body resonator version.  You'll drool over this when it is finished.  I'll bet.

Hope you enjoyed that little tour through the last few months of my CBG life, universe and everything.