Wood Art by Christina

Stan from the Inventing Shed emailed this afternoon and Mike’s guitar is finished and on its way.  Here’s a few pics of the completed guitar. I have to say… Stan, you do beautiful work!

Well Mike’s guitar is almost ready.  Here are the latest pics showing the amazing figure in the top.  He’s going to love it

Our daughter Anna-Marie just celebrated her 10th birthday.  She’s being playing piano for 3 years and has a real natural talent for music, so we decided we’d buy her a starter guitar.  She’s going to have allot of fun playing and learning along side her dad.

The guitar we chose for her is a really basic Fender Squire….of course it had to be RED!

Anna-Marie says “It’s just like the one on Hannah Montana”

So far she’s working through the picking exercises and is really enjoying it.  Maybe down the road, we’ll have a custom build done for her, just like her dad’s.

Mike started turning pens a few years ago and insisted I give it a try.  Pen turning was easier than I thought.  I turned this one on Mike’s Grizzly mini lathe and finished it with crystal coat friction polish… I think it turned out quite nice.  I like the contrast between the black pen kit and the dark maple burl wood.

My daughter Anna-Marie and I decided that this year we’d do something really special for Mike’s birthday.  We decided to have a custom guitar built from our wood.  Anna-Marie and I selected a very special guitar top set and asked Stan of The Inventing Shed to do the build.  Here’s some pictures of the work in progress.

Selecting the profile for the guitar top.

Gluing up the top.

Gluing the top with a strip of paduak in the center.

Waiting for the top to dry.

Getting ready to cut the top and body.

Cutting the guitar top.

Cutting the Alder Solid Body.

Getting ready to glue the top to the body.

More glue.  I just love the figure in this top.

Gluing the top and body together.

Routing the body cavities for the pickups and neck.

More routing…a different view.

Headstock

What the guitar will look like…without a finish.

That’s all for now…will add more pics once the guitar is finished.

I made this little pine bench when I first started woodworking.

I chose pine because it’s a very forgiving wood to work with. It cuts and sands easily and takes on a more rustic look.  Perfect for our country home.

I was shopping at Daniadown (a comforter store) and saw this beautiful wooden rack that was displaying some quilts.  They wanted $199.00 for it.  I couldn’t believe the price…It only had 5 pieces of wood that were maybe 2 feet long each.  I took a really close look at it and decided… I could make one myself.

I purchased some 1″ pine boards from Rona, along with some wood screws and wood plugs, and I was all set to go.  We had a little Craftsman Bandsaw at the time which worked fine for cutting the pine.  I cut the hearts on the side pieces with a scrollsaw and then stained everything with a mix of mahogany and walnut stain from minwax.

I was going for a more rustic look and was very pleased with the results.