Current Happenings

[goroth]

Awesome!

[Nelson Instruments]

No lap steel progress yet. I have a couple designs in mind but just don't have time to give them much thought.
I suppose they are easy enough to make but I need to figure out if there would really be a market for lap steels. There are tons of cool old ones out there for sale and they always just sit in the stores so I'm try to figure out if it would be worth the time to develop them.
:-/
I have been doing a lot of thinking over the past couple months about such things. With all the time it takes to jig up to make something coupled with the time and expense involved in making a particular item.... Well when all is said and done I need to try (especially in these earlier years) to be profitable and make sure that my time is spent developing things that there will be a real market for.
Hence my recent decision to drop my dream of introducing carved/archtop acoustic guitars.
I love old archtops but if I am being honest with myself there just isn't demand for them in todays marketplace, even the best archtops aren't suited for todays music...and why go to all of the intense economic and time investment to make something that will barely sell....especially when what little market there is is already way over saturated with people making them.
(As a side note I have revamped my plans and have come up with what I think is a great alternative to the carved top acoustic that will bridge the gap....hopefully)

I'm not saying "no" to a lapsteel but just need to do a bit more market research. Also since I am slowly trying to transition to dealer based sales I need to make what dealers want and right now they want electric guitars. (So while I will still be introducing new acoustic models, I won't be making nearly as many acoustics for the near future.

:-)

[Nelson Instruments]

Today was a hot and humid one so I didn't feel like doing TOO much in the shop. It was one ofthose days where you can stand still and in 10 seconds you are sweaty.
But I wanted to get SOMETHING done today so I cut the taper forthe headstock and then got them all smoothed out.
Tomorrow I will cut out the rear profiles of the necks, get the final headstock thickness established, and maybe get a fixture or two made!
The one in the middle is going to turn into a lefty Socialite. (Matt!)

[goroth]

Mmm... Lefty neck...

[Nelson Instruments]

Necks are cut out and ready for final profiling and then fingerboards, neck shaping, fret work, body halves glued on, routing, final sanding, and then lacquer!
As a fun side note I weighed the bass necks as they currently are and the maple necks weighed 2.5 lbs. The mahogany necks weighed a mere 1.5 lbs! A whole pound of difference in what are otherwise identical pieces is incredible!

[Nelson Instruments]

I bought this band saw off of craigslist at the beginning of June and it needed to be completely rebuilt mechanically. (It could stand to be cosmetically re-done but I just don't have the time right now). It is from the late 40s or early 50s.
I finally got all of the parts back and so spent the last day or so getting it put together.
Most of today was spent futzing with it to get everything dialed in and I FINALLY got it running right!



Afterward I was able to get back to work so I slotted and did inlays for a bunch of fingerboards. There are a couple nice ebony boards there for a certain someone.....and....a certain someone else!

[goroth]

Those fretboards look great Bobby, and nice pick up with the bandsaw. Reminds me of doing woodwork in highschool.

[Nelson Instruments]

Thanks! It has been a long time since I have worked with ebony. Though I knew it is a VERY dense and heavy wood, I had forgotten just HOW dense and heavy it is!

[Chankgeez]

... I had forgotten just HOW dense and heavy it is!

TWSS

[AngryGoldfish]

Ebony is a beautiful wood. That natural satin aesthetic is wonderfully deep and can't be replicated.

[Nelson Instruments]

Yesterday I was doing final shaping on the headstocks and one of the basses must have had some crazy grain because the cutter blew out some of the maple.
After a few choice words I set out to repair it....because I didn't want to scrap it.....and even more because I didn't want to have to start a new one!
I didn't get a picture of how it looked before but here you can see how it looked after some major chisel work to remove all of the damaged wood and to make the area flat and square.
The middle pic shows the maple plug in place.
The final pic shows the repair all sanded and ready to move forward!
With a nice dark sunburst this will barely be seen!

[htsamurai]

holy shit!
great fix though, no joke, looks really good

[Nelson Instruments]

Thanks!
Well the fingerboards are glued on and trimmed flush with the necks and I just put the side dots in.
Now I need to build the jigs for shaping the necks.



The jigs I had for these guitars were the ones I built for the very first examples and while they got the job done they were pretty terrible/crude overall and rebuilding them in my current fashion will be better in the long run!
So I should be able to get the necks shaped by tomorrow. Then they get fretted. After fret work the body halves get glued on, sanded, routed, final sanded, and then lacquer time!

[Nelson Instruments]

The necks have been shaped! Just need to do some clean up work and they'll be ready for frets!

[Nelson Instruments]

The first of the new basses is glued up!