My Week in Pictures: Monday 10.25.10

Monday 10.25.10
The days of my weeks are divided between building my own guitars and repairing instruments which come through the shop at Guru.

Monday, 9:00am:
After years of hand bending guitar sides, I finally found the time (last week)to put together a side bending jig. There are plenty of guitar builder supply websites which sell these jigs for $400+, but for the price of some scrap plywood and a few springs I put one together. Why it's taken me so long to do so? I have no idea. But I digress, this morning I put the new jig to work bending a new set of sides for the 415 Archtop prototype. First the sides needed a little bit of love to get them ready...


The roughed out sides next to the carved 415 archtop plates


The sides were a bit thick so I needed to take them down a little



Into the thickness sander they go


Much better!




I then decided to taper them. I've always like the look of a tapered guitar body. So I made a makeshift tapering jig for my tablesaw...ugly but it got the job done!




My side bending jig with the body form loaded in.




Like many other builders, I sandwich the sides between sheets of spring steel for support while bending. Here is one side on the steel.




There are many ways to bend guitar sides in a jig like this, But I decided to use a silicon heating blanket for a more controlled heat. Here is the blanket laid out on the spring steel ready for the sides.



The whole assembly is in the bender. (The guitar sides and heating blanket sandwiched between steel slats.) Ready to begin!



It's all heating up!



After bringing the heat up, the waist is screwed down and I'm getting ready to bend the upper and lower bouts.




All the bending is done. Now I cook it for a few minutes and turn it off to cool. Time to do some repairs!



Monday 11:05am

After a quick clean up of my bench I grab the first guitar on the list. A Strat copy. The customer brought it in for a setup, and he wants to put on slightly heavier strings. No worries!






LSL...Hmmmmm...Never heard of it. The number of Strat copies in the world never ceases to amaze me. Do we really need all of them? I don't know, but that is a rant for another time!






With the old strings off, it's time to clean up the guitar. Thankfully this one is relatively goo free.



With new strings installed, I adjust the neck and start to set the action height. Surprise! the old nut is cut too low! A quick call to the owner follows...and we get the thumbs up to replace the nut, so out with the old...




...In with the new. With the nut replaced, I restring and finish the setup. New nut, new strings, and de-gooed, the guitar is ready to go back home. Next!



Next up? An imported PRS. The customer brought it in, complaining of a Sitar-like vibration on the high E string. Buzzes and rattles can often be hard to diagnose. This one was easy to find, but hard to fix.







After a minute or two of poking and prodding it was fairly easy to see that the vibration originated around the bridge saddle. It's not uncommon to have a burr develop in this area, so my first move was to take the string loose and smooth out the area where the string wraps around the bridge. I was not that lucky! So much for the easy fix! After looking around the bridge a bit closer, I realized that the whole bridge and post assembly was tilting forward due to the string tension and design of the bridge itself. In fact the tilt was so severe that it caused the string to lay flat on the top of the bridge with no break angle behind the front contact point. 'Well there's yer problem!' I took all of the strings loose and discovered that the threaded posts which hold the bridge were loose in their bushings. Additionally the bridge itself fit too loosely on posts. All of this slop added up to a really annoying buzz. My solution was to cut thin brass shims to tighten up the fit between the bridge and it's posts. I then cut two small, thin brass shims which I stuck between the threads of the bushings in the body and the posts. This seemed to tighten everything up enough to move the bridge closer the the intended position. Here you can see the brass shims between the posts and the bridge. I later trimmed them down to fit under the post tops out of sight.





It's not a particularly elegant solution, but sometimes you have to work with what you got. I could go on a rant about imported guitars and cheap hardware, but I get it...I understand the need for inexpensive instruments, and cheap hardware is just part of the territory. The sad fact is, If I didn't build guitars, I would probably have a cheap imported guitar. Anyway, at this point I called it good and sent the guitar on its way.


I spent a lot more time than I wanted to on the PRS. I was so wrapped up in the hulabaloo that I nearly forgot about an appointment to take my truck in for repair. So i dashed out the door.


Monday 4:30pm

Even though I was late, I couldn't resist checking on the sides I bent this morning. Success! They fit the mold nicely!




I Clamped everything up for the night I can't wait to get started tomorrow!

Well it was a bad day for the old paycheck, But I made a little progress. No leaving early tomorrow! See you then!

Madness

Alright, I'm not even going to say it...Yes it's been six months since my last post. I've been busy. Here's the short version of what I've been up to:

Repairs, Building, Shop re-organization, Hob-nobbing with rockstars. For those of you who don't really like to read, you can skip to the pictures now. For the rest of you, here are the details.

Guru Guitars continues to be crazy. We've had so much cool stuff come through the shop it's hard to remember it all. As always you should check out their website at www.guruguitarshop.com. I, for the most part, am uninvolved with the buying and selling of cool gear. Although, occasionally I am pulled from beneath the mountain of repair work to gaze longingly at a tube amp from the sixties or a guitar from the 50's. My current lust is for a '63 Blonde Tremolux, which winks at me from the show room floor. I'm a sucker for an old Fender.

Anyway, I've recently had a few cool guitars on the repair bench, amidst the never ending stream of Squire Stratocasters and cheap import acoustics. I did some major work to a 60's Gretsch Nashville. I re glued almost all of the braces on a 1950Gibson j-45. Refretted a couple of 70's Les Pauls. Tweaked a Cool Mosrite double neck. I've made it through countless,setups, refrets, wiring mods, crack triage, and yesterday I arrived at a place that was both satisfying and terrifying...the bottom of the list...EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKK! We're caught up!

The Mosrite double neck! Pretty awesome!


The Gretsch, as it came into the shop. All of the parts were in a bag.


I had to refret the guitar and replace all of the crumbling binding around the neck. I was able to save the original side dots and reinstall them in the new binding!

The resurrected Gretsch. Original side dots in new binding!


Ready to rock again!



In the midst of all the repair mayhem I have managed to squeeze in a bit of building. I am always rethinking my "product line". I wrestle constantly with the feeling that I should nail down some specs which will be consistent... so when somebody orders guitar "A", guitar "A" always comes with particular features. Unfortunately curiosity often gets the best of me, and my attempts to standardize are once again put on hold. At this point, I enjoy the organic nature of my business and I feel like all of the experiments are valuable. I learn a lot from each new guitar. I really draw on this knowledge when I am asked to design a guitar for a new client. I've started to think of each of my models as a platform or basic starting point. From there I can mix and match building techniques and design ideas to personalize the sound and look for each client. There are still a lot of concepts I want to check out. Most recently, I re-designed the 504 and it's pretty cool if I do say so myself.


The new 504 body in progress.

Ready to spray!

The new 504.







The Tailpiece


I've also gotten back to the acoustic prototype which I started months/years ago. It's finally taking shape. the top is braced and after much tapping and carving I've glued it to the ring. It has a pleasing "Boing" when you tap on it; I'm excited to hear what it sounds like with strings on it. Of course there are already things I want to change on the next version, but I think this one will sound good. I hope to finish it in the next few months.


The new acoustic top. In the midst of carving braces.



The back.


Getting ready to glue the top to the ring.


Now on to the Hobb-nobbing with rockstars bit. As I mentioned in an earlier Blog post, the Spearhead guys have a couple of my guitars. Well, in May, they came through Raleigh and stopped by the shop to say hi. At that point I had just started the new 504 and they got to see it in the early stages. They played a great show that night and we got to hang for a bit afterwards. It was very cool. Fast-forward a few months...after finishing their summer tour, Spearhead was back in our neck of the woods. We made plans to meet up with them for their show down in Charlotte. After much prodding from Michelle I agreed to take the completed 504 down so the guys could see the final product. We met up with the guitar player Dave Shul and showed him the guitar. To my surprise, he asked if he could try it out at sound check and possibly play it in the show. I, of course said No! because I didn't want it scratched...just kidding! I said yes! I was blown away when he plugged it in and started putting the guitar through it's paces at full concert volume! I don't often get to hear my guitars played so loudly. I wasn't quite sure how the guitar would work, but it was really awesome! Well, to make a long story longer... He loved the guitar. He loved it so much, he played it for at least 10 or 12 songs during the concert. The guitar sounded great! We got some video footage, but unfortunately the concert was so loud that the tiny microphone on our video camera couldn't keep up. So the audio sucks. For now, we only have pictures. Boo! I'll try to piece together some clips that don't sound too bad. Anyway Dave loved the guitar and we talked a lot about making him one custom. I'm really excited about the project. Nothing is settled at this point, but I hope we can make it happen. Stay tuned!


Dave Shul and the new 504 in full shred mode!








That is all of the excitement for now. We are in the process of completely re-working the website, and might have t-shirts for sale in the near future. if you want one, shoot me an email. Talk to you in a few months!

Spring time in the Woodshop

It is really alarming how quickly time passes! I have every intention of writing a new blog post every month but here I am, and it's been four months since the last one!

As always, things are moving forward. Guru Guitars continues to be really busy. The repair load has grown to the point that we were forced to do a bit of remodeling to accommodate the insane amount of guitars, cases and odd bits that go with them. We rearranged the back room and built three new racks for customer guitars. We are running at a two week back log at this point. We've also been getting a lot of cool gear in the shop for sale, probably the coolest of which is an original 1960 Fender Tweed Bassman! For those of you who don't know this is one of the "Holy Grail" guitar amps, one of the amps which "started it all" so to speak. You can check it out on the guru website:

http://www.guruguitarshop.com/Fender/Original%20Fender%20Bassman%201960.htm

Things in the Conner Guitars world have been pretty interesting as well. The move has unearthed some trash...er...treasure, which might be worth revisiting. The first is an old parlor guitar which was given to me years ago. The name inside is Henry L Mason, beyond that, I have been unable to figure out exactly what it is...my best guess is that it was made or possibly distributed by Henry Mason of the Mason and Hamlin Piano Co. and it was probably built around the end of the 1800'S. Unfortunately the top is almost destroyed. So...I think I've decided that it would be a fun restoration project. I'll post some pictures and the project gets underway.

The second is an old Gibson from the 30's which is almost totally destroyed and possibly unrepairable. If I get really crazy I might try to resurrect it...after all it is easter weekend!

Meanwhile...in the year 2010...we have some exciting news!...Michael Franti and his band Spearhead now have a couple of my guitars! Some of you guys might know them from their tune which is getting a lot of air-time these days, "Say Hey( I love you)" If not, check out their website at www.michaelfranti.com better yet, go see them while they are on tour! They are a great band and I'm excited to be involved with them! Michael and the Spearhead guys have been recording some tracks for their new album with a 504 and a 510 semi-hollow. I'm looking forward to seeing them when they come through Raleigh, in May.

Back at home, I am working on an archtop prototype to replace the small 415 model. It will be a bit bigger, and more acoustically active. My hope is to capture more of that classic archtop vibe and sound. I have a lot of new ideas floating around in my head, I hope that I will get a chance to explore a bit in the coming months until then...thanks for reading. I'll post some pictures soon!

Well it's been crazy since my last post, but we've made the move to Raleigh. This is the end of our first week in town and it's already beginning to feel like home. I'll be sharing a workshop with Howard and Gene of Guru Guitars and we've been working very hard to get the new shop set up. There's still plenty to do, but we're getting close to being functional in there. It's been really great to get to know the two guys a bit. We all have very different takes on guitar building and it's great to see their styles. It seems like the shop will be a really creative place for us all to work. After working alone for so long I'm looking forward to having people to share ideas with. I'll post some pictures of the progress in the next few days. As always if you are in town please stop by and see us!



















Workshop - Fresh off the Truck














Taking down a wall in the workshop.

Big Changes

It's been a long time since my last post, but lots of things have been happening. We are currently in the process of making some big changes. So...without further adieu... I am pleased to announce that Conner Guitars will be moving to Raleigh, NC. My friends at Guru Guitars (in Raleigh) have asked me to join their crew and I have accepted. I will be helping them out with their ever increasing load of repair work. Guru is a great little shop. It's a come in and hang out sort of place. The owners Howard and Gene are both guitar builders and we seem to have a lot in common. I'm looking forward to being part of their operation! Check out their website at www.guruguitarshop.com or better yet, if you are anywhere near Raleigh, please stop by and say Hi! I will, of course, still be building my own guitars. Any instruments which are currently on order will be delivered on time. We hope to be out in Raleigh by the end of October, so now the packing begins...

In other news, for those of you who haven't already seem it, I got a very nice write up on www.jazzguitarlife.com

http://www.jazzguitarlife.com/blog/meeting-clay-conner-of-conner-guitars/

Jazzguitarlife is a great site. It has lots of interesting reading, as well as lessons and gig/cd reviews. I'm really pleased to be involved with them. If you are interested check it out. They are planning to do an interview with me in the coming months so stay tuned for that.

That's about all for now. I'm up to my eyeballs in packing peanuts and tape. we'll be setting up the new shop over the next month or so and I'll post some photo of the progress.

until then see you in Raleigh!

Montreal and beyond

Hi everybody,

Well the Montreal guitar show was awesome! We met some great people and saw some beautiful instruments. The show was organized so well. There were sound proof rooms where prospective buyers could check out instruments and get to know them a bit. There were also mini concerts running almost all day featuring musicians playing luthiers instruments. The show was a lot more hands on than I thought it would be. I was very impressed. I am psyched that we were able to make it up there. I am looking forward to exhibiting there next year.

One of the highlights for me was meeting John Monteleone. He's one of the great archtop builders and a hero of mine. His work is especially amazing in person. I also got a chance to meet Jason Verlinde, publisher of my favorite guitar magazine The Fretboard Journal. He was great, and I can't say enough good things about the magazine. If you're a fan of guitars and musicians check it out.

I also had a very nice meeting with Lyle Robinson, the editor for www.jazzguitarlife.com. It was great to get to know him a bit and he seemed to really enjoy my guitar. I hope to do some advertising on his site at some point in the near future.

All in all it was a great trip. My guitars seem to stack up pretty well, of course there is always room for improvement but I am looking forward to taking part in the festivities next year.

Back at home, I've been re-grouping a bit, cleaning up the shop, and organizing. I bought a couple of new tools. finally a decent jointer and a good table-saw. It's starting to look like a real shop. the next projects are up in the air right now, I'm planning to use the down time to experiment with winding my own pickups. I also want to finish the acoustic prototype which has taken a back seat to more pressing work. That's about it for now, check out the photos of the finished 510 which I took to Montreal.

The Montreal 510


The Montreal 510 front



The Montreal 510 back.


The newish jointer,


And my newish tablesaw

Holy Cow - a Blog Update!!

Well I've been sadly neglecting my blogging duties...as all three of you following this blog know. But lots of things have been going on at Clay Conner Guitars. So here goes:

Probably the most exciting news is that we've purchased plane tickets to Montreal - to attend the Montreal Guitar Show over the 4th of July weekend. (Lucky for us it coincides with the Montreal Jazz Fest). This year is mostly a reconnaisance mission, as I've never been to the show before. I just want to see what the show is like in hopes of having a booth there next year. I have to say a wave of panic hit me when we bought the tickets - I'm finally going to be in a room with some of the best luthiers in the world. We will see how I stack up.

I've been burning the midnight oil trying to finish a new carved top 510 to take to Montreal (and to Nashville, see below). It's going well and I've attached a few pics of the guitar in progress below.

We're also planning on attending the NAMM show since it's so close - in Nashville. If you'd like to meet me or see one of my guitars at either of these shows shoot me an email at: clay@clayconnerguitars.com. Also, we've set up a fan page on Facebook - feel free to check that out and become a fan, or you can follow me on Twitter.

That's about it for this time. I'm sure as the shows approach you'll be hearing some philosophical ramblings from this direction - a by product of the inevitable soul searching that will happen.




New carved top 510.



510 carved back.


510 Carved Top.