For the latest entry, scroll down until you find the Dark Blue Text. All entries are kept here for posterity, in chronological order.
Welcome to your private,
Now, sit back and watch as I mill this extremely rare lumber into massive piles of sawdust ;~} and please join me in the hope that what’s left over will be 5 of my finest Jumbo Shells. All kidding aside, thank you for gracing my shop with your patronage. It is an honor to be in your service.
If you have any questions, feel free to call: 303-973-1128. There is also an eMail button in the footer of this page. Click on any image for a full sized version and enjoy the show.
If you please: This view of my shops and especially, my tricks, is for your eyes only. As my patron, I offer you an inside view of your project’s status. Please do not share this view with your do-it-yourself’er buddies. Some of these tricks are quite creative, but in general, you will see an old fashioned process that is enhanced with nothing more than a lot of extra love and attention to quality. I build these as if they were my own, as you’ll soon see.
Status #1: Genuine Honduran Mahogany Arrives
The hardest part of ever project is finding the lumber.
Scouring the mills from New Mexico to Wyoming puts a lot of miles on the truck, but when I return, the shop is quickly filled of weeks of promise and hope.
Yesterday, I hauled your Mahogany from a
There are several lesser species floating around - Honduran is the pinnacle, the only one called Genuine.
Your slabs are ~ 10 Ft long, 12 inches wide and over 1 inch think. The texture is extremely rough, best for natural drying. Being oversized, almost 30% of the wood will literally dissolve
To give you a hint of what the wood really looks like, I planed one plank to strip off the rough milling sludge. Honduran starts as a mild tan color, but when fine lacquer hits it, it will take on a golden
On the right, a photo showing what Honduran Mahogany looks like with a natural clear lacquer. A sample of your wood is being prepared with Lacquer and will be mailed to you as soon as it is ready. I trust you will enjoy the preview.
Yesterday, I chopped the timbers into useful lengths. Sawdust is starting to pile up... would you like some for your garden? Oh, sorry, I forgot.
Ten foot slabs produce a pair of four foot sections that will be the sides of your shells. The bottom panel comes from the middle section to produce grain-matched corners. When I can find 12 foot timbers, three of the four corners are grain-matched, but your batch came in 10’s. The top panels are selected for similarity of tone and grain but what you primarily see is wood
On the right, the rack of rough cut slabs lay with the ends correlated and labelled to allow realignment of the matching grains. At this stage, they are still too wide for use.
Every time a timber is cut, internal stresses are released. The resulting pieces take on a new shape quickly. After initial drying of a full sized timber, there is a rush to get it sized more appropriately - to initiate this affectation of warpage.
Allowing the wood to settle into a naturally relaxed shape is critical prior to final sizing of the lumber. This takes time, no drier can accelerate the process.
Later, after a settling period, the surfaces will be flattened on huge planing machines eliminating the evidence of warpage forever. Assuring that settling has converged is an art... but measuring the wood’s core moisture allows me to be almost certain that warping is entirely done.
A
Some of your timbers were 12 inches wide, affording me a lot of margin as I selected (one timber at a time) the best grain structures. As you can see
On the right, a first look at the deep core of your Mahogany. Recall that this is still quite rough. Taking that into account... go look at the back of your PRS. I believe you are going to be very pleased with this lumber.
The
And so, we begin a few weeks of waiting for this wood to settle. A lacquered sample will be finished in the interim.
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The final entry for this status report includes a very pleasant surprise.
I have applied only one coat of lacquer to your Mahogany and it is not yet polished or hand rubbed in any way... but the first look is so stunning, I had to photograph it for you.
Please remember, this is the butt end of a slab, scrap at best and with only a minimum of attention to sanding. Such a ‘quick look’ rarely shows any luster or flare.
Compare these images closely. Can you see the subtle difference?
The effect is most pronounced in the upper section of the sample you see above. The effect is called Iridescence. The symptom most recognized is a variation of color as your view angle or the angle of the light changes.
If you’ve seen curly maple (your PRS Top for example) then you’ve no doubt seen the effect.
In Mahogany, iridescence appears
On the right, you’ll see a color corrected image - offering a truer presentation of the tones than the images above. The sparkly appearance goes away with hand polishing...
Iridescence is rare in dark woods and a real treat to find. I have seen a lot of Mahogany that has little of this glow. Your’s appears to be a very special batch. Let’s hope it is well distributed across the massive surface area that five jumbo cases tallies up to.
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Status #2 - Fine Milling & PreAssembly
Thank you for your patience. Your Mahogany has completed it’s curing & settling period. A week ago, it returned to my active workbenches. For the rest of its journey, it will be the only project on which I am focussed. Did you know you owned a wood shop?
In
It moves pretty quickly through this phase...
On the right, your slabs are sent through a very blunt surfacing on a Planar. The mill-crud that’s obscured our view of this fine wood is finally stripped off. Amazing volumes of sawdust dominate this phase, I produced 150 gallons on your lumber in one day.
On the left, you see a hybrid of old and new surfaces
I look forward to showing you the good news as soon as it is better exposed.
If you like the back of your PRS, this wood will certainly please you!
By the time the slabs have been sanded a few dozen times, the surface is stunning, yet still so rough it’ll splinter.
There’s a lot of polishing to do to bring out the luster and character in the wood, but while I am working on rough dimensioning, the grain character is being surveyed for utility. The slabs are being sorted for matching and consistency. Subtle labels start to appear on the edges and ends to guide the subsequent handling.
After
On the right, a 16” Jointer (that is older*
* This photo is quite old, from the earliest days of this adventure. It’s the only one that is not of your lumber. Sorry, you don’t want to see my current wrinkled form... trust me.
Recall that I started with super thick rough stock. I like to have plenty of margin for this flattening maneuver.
Luckily,
On the left, you’ll see how I survey each slab for
On the right, the resulting thickness is barely below 1”. Standard furniture timbers are dimensioned to slightly less than 3/4” thickness.
Your cabinet will present a bold look, thick solid wood speaks volumes. I know you will like the end effect, but I must caution that the cabinets will be a chore to lift. Plan on getting a second set of strong hands for the installation, but fear not, the mounting brackets have carried far heavier cabinets with rock solid results.
Back at the home shop
On the right, we’re back on the table saw to make the corresponding parallel edge.
Another trip to the jointer cleans up this final edge and that marks the end of the pre-milling phase. No, it’s time for what I call Fine Milling, as if it could get any finer...
Before the slabs are
... hand sanding is a great work out.
Mahogany dust is highly toxic so I look for good weather to do such work outdoors, as shown on the left.
On the right, the result of the fine surface work. Sorry about the dark image, it quite cloudy by the end of the two days of sanding effort. Nevertheless, you can see the grain clarity starting to ring out of the wood.
Some of the slabs appear to have great ribbons of grain, others are nicely gnarly. It’s a wonderful mix that does not appear to challenge the goal of a matched batch.
Speaking of matching, you will soon notice that I am
Shown next is an arduous effort to lay the slabs so as to re-join the matched ends that were established before the first few cuts were made. Recall that 12 foot slabs were chopped and labelled to allow for this realignment. My fingers are crossed that some evidence of grain matching will appear, but keep in mind that a dovetail joint hides a lot of the ‘matched’ edges... it’s not as certain as a true book matching scheme, for understandable reasons.
Labels are taped on the inside edges as the case lay, components roughly aligned as if ready for assembly.
On the right, the chop saw puts a fresh end on the slabs and you can see another subtle threat to our goal of grain matched corners. If I could pre-mill without damaging the ends... gotta get better at that! Up to now, the only thing you’ve seen that might be outside the realm of a typical hobbyist is the scale and roughness of the initial lumber. Soon, the art-part shows up in the process... I promise.
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This installment will show you one of my favorite phases of the project.
Dovetails provide the strongest joints. Often hidden, I choose to highlight them. As such, I set a high bar for quality of the joinery.
I am please to report that yours came out quite well, tight as a drum... here’s a look at how they were made.
A relatively simple jig aligns the components and guides the router. The goal is to keep an even pace, lest the wood splinter or worse, burn.
As with all things, patience and care make all the difference. Factories simple push it all too quickly...
Erring on the side of caut
I like to oversize the tails for a tight fit. When first cut, they hardly close. With a touch up of each tail and socket, the fit can is tuned to a tee.
As you see on the left, the first dry fit joints are tight.
Next, the joints are glued and the shells are bound into a
Inspired by a Luthier’s rack of custom gluing jigs, I built these home made presses to see if I could match the quality of joinery you are used to seeing on an acoustic guitar. I hope you will be as pleased with them as I am.
After a few
In the next installment, you’ll see what I have been doing these last few days: Making a lot of saw dust and noise.
Wish me luck, this is a dangerous phase. I’ve lost a few to this stage, as I’ll explain after I am done and your wood is out of harms way.
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In this update, I will be sculpting all of the outer edges to soften the case’s visual affect. Next, I’ll carve the inner edges to create a door jamb and a back-panel mortise. These are a common tools and techniques, scaled to what some have called ridiculous proportions.
Welcome to the Monster Router Table
In a factory, pushing a lot of wood, all of the edge effects are implemented prior to assembly of a furniture project. Component level millings are safer and a lot easier to execute en masse. Mishaps or falters at this stage are less likely because the wood can always be fed into the tools with the preferred grain phasing respected. Mitre’ed corners are a consequence of the factory format, as required to join any edge effect symmetrically.
Post Assembly Milling, on the other hand, avails a softer, rounded result. The difference is stunningly effective at bridging the gap between furniture and a musical instrument. A guitar, facing forward in a typical hard cornered cabinet seemed inappropriate to my taste. PAM allows a stronger dovetail stronger joint to be employed as well.
PAM is a dangerous practice, however. The MRT has killed many cabinets. I am getter better all the time, but this phase still gives me pause.
Fear not. As of this writing, your five look fabulous! Being behind in time, these status reports often appear to exaggerate a concern which has not come to pass. Let me show you how close it was...
Mahogany is flaky. It fractures at the surface like shale-rock in exfoliating layers. Albeit a microscopic effect, it adds up to a very nasty finishing challenge. Obviously, all wood species require a certain percentage of time under the care of hand sanding. Post Milling Polish can be easy on butterwood(s) but Mahogany is more like peanut brittle. Am I whining?
Truth be told, I love sanding... watching bare wood come to a shine is a treat you will soon witness.
To hang flush to the wall, a 3/4” french cleat on the back panel will occupy that notch. Toward the top of the photo, the front of the case and of course, the door jamb.
Left,
More often than not, I feed the work in the cutter(s) too slowly, resulting in burns that are extremely difficult to clean off. The pinnacle of risk is on the end grain near the dovetails.
All told, your Mahogany came through this difficult stage quite well.
As of this publication the cases are in the sanding booth and nearly ready to be lacquered. I will be milling the back panels, cleats, and yoke blocks prior to beginning the lacquer phase, as you will see in subsequent reports.
Now, some sad news... Do you recall that I have been processing 6 cases, allowing for some ‘surprises’ along the path? Sadly, one of the six cases was downgraded to a status of Not For Sale. If it interests you, the story is briefly offered below, otherwise rest assured that your 5 are fine.
This class of failure is deeply disappointing. While I haunt exotic & rare woods, the types of which guitar lovers love, I bump into some nasty problems hidden deep inside the timbers. Surfaces are deceptive. When milled, core wood is exposed
In your timbers, I have discovered areas of bug chases. Your tree was home to all kinds of critters. This is always true at the microscopic level. Your tree’s critters were huge. The highways built by such parasites are sometimes filled, closed off by the tree’s natural defenses. In such cases, you will see what is called Spalting. The most common cause of Spalt is a fungus.
Your Mahogany was a high rise apartment of critters too large for the tree to defeat. I can see evidence of shellac coatings as signs that the critters were lining the highways in an attempt to seal off the tree’s chemical defenses.
99.99% of the chases in your timber are the lucky type. They are pinholes in the surface, to be filled with Lacquer and hardly visible in the end result. When one of the bug chases interrupts the surface at an angle, the result is a slash in the wood.
Fear not. This marks the end of all major threats to the project’s success. Your five cases are well on their way to your new guitar showroom.
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In this update, I’ll try to catch up a bit. These photos are getting old and I apologize for the delayed status. Today, with cold and snow, Lacquer can’t be sprayed so I’ll take this opportunity to say hello.
Thanks for your kind words recently. The only real impact of my family’s annoyance has been a delay on these status reports. The shop-work is coming along nicely. There’s no threat to our schedule. I have, however, lapsed on the desk-time necessary to update this page. I’ll pick up the pace herein.
Your door will fully open and be out of harm’s way as you access the enclosure. This is no small challenge, but please forgive my braggadocio.
The cut is done with eyes on the blade, hence the lamp.
Right: The finished mortise.
Not shown is an hour of sanding and the preDrilling for the hinge screws.
Slope of the notch is critical to tensioning the door when closed. As such, the jig is much more precise than its crude construction infers.
It’s hardly surgery, in fact it is simple. It is, however, stepped up a notch in precision.
I assure you that these cases will be rock solid on and flush to your walls, plumb enough to disallow a drifting door. With tongue in cheek, I will challenge you to pry the thing off the wall.
The rest of the back is held with small steel (not zinc) screws. Here is a noteworthy upgrade over traditional builders. Most would staple the back in place and spend only five minutes on the task.
My hope is that these accessories in your collection will be as generational as the guitars they hosts.
Although the milling is thrilling and I regret skipping over it... I will leave with some humor instead.
As an Aerospace Engineer, I worked on active missions from ground stations and Air Force Bases. Every thing I did was written up in a procedure of some form. Paperwork was daunting and discipline was strict.
Years later, my wood shop is dictated by written procedures as you see above. I simply can’t remember the hundreds of dimensions within my standard designs. I need crib notes to tie my shoes ;-)
On its shelf, it can never leak and will emit moisture as aggressively as you maintain its supply. Additional units on the bottom shelf may be necessary. We’ll tackle calibration(s) as you settle into use.
Elbow noises and shoulder aches don’t slow me down. Before I take a cabinet into the spray booth, it has to shine.
Sadly, there is not much else to show you while a long haul of ugly lacquer coatings are applied. They eventually get polished to a fine lens that broadcast the wood’s beauty. The interim coats are rather ugly, however.
Good luck with the choices, and don’t be afraid to go find your own if you have particular tastes. JoAnnes is one of our local sources, if that helps.
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Thank you for your patience, this page will no doubt be slow to load now that it is this large.
Now that the Lacquering is done, I will give you a “quick look” at the nearly completed cabinets.
If you would like to see anything in more detail, you need only ask. If the weather holds, we’ll be fabricating your doors this weekend and assembling them for shipping later in the week.
Although our contract infers otherwise, I would be more than happy to keep any or all of these cases if you are less than thrilled with my results. Feel free to be picky... you deserve the best.
Before we begin, please allow me to introduce my boss, the owner and the chief executive officer of this company. I call him shopCat but his given name is Loki, the lord of mischief.
As you can see here, Loki enjoyed inspecting your fabric. Fear not, he did no damage and we launder all fabrics before use.
In these photos, your cases are numbered from left to right as 1 through 5. This ID is written on the back of the cases.
Cases 1, 2 and 3 are hinged on the left, 4 and 5 are hinged on the right.
It’s a subtle brain tease, but as soon as you open an incorrectly hinged refrigerator, you will never forget the following perspective. I assume that you have selected the hinge sides with respect for the possibility that the case will be more approachable from the side opposite of the hinge. As such, if a case has a “more visible side”, then it will be the side on which the Latches reside.
I selected the better sides of each case with this perspective as I mortised the hinges and lock notches. If you wish to map out where you will place each case, the photos show the latch sides. When the cases arrive, they will be wrapped in protective paper that you can not be removed until after you have installed them on your wall. These photos are your best shot at designing where each case will best be located.
Some are darker than others, and a few wild sections of grain may or may not be attractive to your taste. It is possible to reHost a case if you change your mind later, but the risk of handling unwrapped case is not to be ignored.
Also shown in the images above: A Full View Cabinet in Walnut that is going to Mr. Bob Taylor’s home... no pressure?
The green in the fabric does not argue (in my opinion) with the colors in the wood. Given that guitars are an unlimited pallet of chromatic variations, I am keen to look for some in the cabinet as well.
Care for a guitar tour? The first pair of pictures are of my Lassie from Belfast, Ireland. A custom built Lowden D-30 with East Indian Rosewood and Sitka Spruce. Check out the five piece neck. That’s Santos Mahogany and Cocobola. The resonance is amazing.
Now, how about some wild colors... let’s see if the fabric takes offense.
I grabbed this guitar off his tour truck while he cried “I get ‘em for free, you know... but that one will be missed”.
On the right, meet my high school sweetheart. She is a hand made (in Spain) D-35 knock off. I often hang her backwards, I love the Brazilian Rosewood. I traded a 62’ Gibson SG for this in 1974 while as a senior in HS.
Noting how valuable a ’62 SG is now... do you think I made a mistake? All you’ll need is one chord to know why this guitar is going to the grave with me.
My final sample is a guitar my wife gave me 15 yrs ago. This is the one that started me on the road I now walk. It is too beautiful to hide in a “coffin case”, so I built my first cabinet to show her off.
Joe Knaggs at PRS hand carved this ArchTop (left) as a protoType for the production model. They only made a few hundred, but the deep body style never took hold in the market. As a result, I have a very rare and little known gem.
This is an amazing guitar that has been the envy of more than a few who can afford to torture me with $$$ as they try and take it away from me.
Blessed so far, I hope to say on my final day that I have never sold a guitar. I know the Devil has plenty, but Saint Peter may want one, so I’ll take two guitars to my grave.
There is little choice regarding the vertical layout of the fabric, but rest assured that the pattern will be similar in all five cases.
As you can see, the case is slightly taller than the repeat of the fabric. If you have a preference for which way the fabric lays with respect to top and bottom, now is the time to tell me. Did I guess correctly here?
My final; critique of the fabric: I love it, I want it for my own cabinet and I will be looking for more as soon as possible.
Thank you for your fast response. You’ve asked us to set up the fabric as shown on the left below. Nice choice, we hoped for this phasing.
Installation Instruction & User’s Guide: When the delivery truck arrives, your cases are bound on a pallet. If the truck does not have a lift gate, then the driver will have been requested to unbind the pallet on the truck so that the boxes may be handled individually. Some drivers need to be reminded of this request. If the pallet is of no value to you, the driver should haul it away for you, but note that it is yours.
As you prepare for installation, remember that an assistant will be helpful. They are not heavy but they are bulky. I am on-call 24/7 to help via the phone, don’t hesitate to call.
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Happy New Year
Assembly was completed earlier this month, but these photos languished on the camera as I focussed on wrapping the batch.
Thank you - yet again - for your patience. I sincerely hope that you will be pleased with these results. I will let the photos* speak for themselves and invite you to call or write if you would like a closer look at any of the work.
Regrettably, the protective wrap stays on the door until you have hung the case on your wall. I would love to show you the un-wrapped view, but the threat of shop-dust on the door is more than I can allow.
* Note that the camera exaggerated the green of your fabric. My photo flash / lighting systems are not well calibrated to the shop’s florescent lights.
Moving forward: Freight reservations will be confirmed early next week and your invoice will be sent immediately afterwards. Upon review of the invoice, your verbal assurance of payment will be enough to allow me to initiate the delivery.
Your convenience is my goal. If you have any concerns about receipt of this shipment in the timeframe between the 14th and 16th of January, please inform me as soon as possible. I am able to target the delivery to your desired date.
Have I mentioned how much fun this project was? Thank you.
Play Often,
Mitch