guitargeek

My friends have the cutest dog!



His name is Buzz and he's just fierce!



More mad scientist stuff...

I've been trying different ideas for this guitar amp I'm building, finish treatments and such. I had planned to use Behlen's Qualasole, but I hear that it doesn't "build" like I want it to, so I've decided to go with clear nitrocellulose lacquer. I've also made the somewhat radical decision to "barn" the wood. I've coined the term "barn" as a verb to describe the process by which I erode the softer grain of a piece of wood, leaving the harder grain behind, sorta like the wood on an old... yes, you guessed it, barn. I think some people refer to it as "sculpted" grain, but whatever you call it the wood has a texture to it sorta like polished driftwood.

Barney, my strat:



Why did I decide to barn the amp? Well, as I bitched and moaned in my last journal, this board I have to work with is far from perfect, yet it was the nicest one I could find. It's hard to find decent wood in the width I needed (a foot wide). There are no knots or huge splits, but there are some places where the soft grain has already been knocked out, places that will show when the amp is put together. Using grain filler here would be cheesy, so I pick the more unusual option which I think will yield more interesting and potentially satisfying results, even though it involves a great deal more work...

Here's a shot of the brass logo I made sitting on the top plate of the carcase (the top of the cabinet), and is about where the logo will be located:



Here's the logo next to a test patch I did on a spare board. This is what the whole cabinet should look like when it's all said & done:



Watch how the light plays on the grain of the wood...



In other news, the weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow, maybe even 70 degrees, so I plan to fill the tank on my motorcycle and go for a nice long ride. Maybe I can talk Action Man into going, too. I get an infusion on Tuesday, and I'd love to ride to my appointment but it'll be kinda cold for that, so I want to have a little fun before sinking into that awful blues jam for the rest of the week...



How about more random photos from the last few days?