Stratocaster Setup

My daily player is an old cheapo strat-style guitar made by Manhattan. I've been playing it a lot more since discovering Yousician, and its needs the setup attending to; the bridge pick up is generally unresponsive and the action is a little buzzy on one or two strings.

First I wanted to check the fingerboard radius, prior to setting the action. These radius gauges were supplied by GMC Luthier Tools and are very nice indeed. They are laser cut stainless steel and have a precise, rugged feel about them; whats more, they are made in the UK and the are supplied within a few days of placement of your order.

I use this string ruler to set the height I want.

You use these little soccket head set screws to adjust the string height on a tele or stratocaster style bridge.

Bellini Accordion

This beasty came my way recently when a friend was clearing out his loft. It's a Bellini piano accordion, 41 treble keys, 120 bass buttons. It's very grubby, as you might expect, but the bellows are sound and the case is in good shape.

Obviously missing is one of the bellows straps, which I will probably make in the workshop. The straps are in very poor shape; one of the feet is missing and the grille is dented. None of that is insurmountable though!

The bass buttons are something else though. Obviously this machine has been sitting around for a while, and much of the filth outside is probably also inside. The bass buttons are not supposed to look like this:

New OM Project

I built a OOO/OM cutaway for my son Tom, years ago for his 18th birthday, and I like this small guitar over the dreadnought I usually play. Inspired by the Martin OMCPA4, I'd like to build another.

Sometime in the dim and distant past I acquired some part finished items for an OM sized cutaway. I have most of the parts in a semi-finished state. I have this spruce top, with a tacky rosette and full length split... usable? maybe...

I have a set for the back in Sapele, in usable condition:

There is a matching set of ribs, partially bent

There are some nasty plywood end blocks:

I have a semi finished neck, design for bolting. It's very shallow and could be very comfortable

It's got some damage at the peg head. I might do a peghead overlay on the back as well - it has a rosewood overlay on the front already.

As I said...

I've got a couple of rosewood fingerboards, saddles & bridges in stock:

 And some fretwire left over from another project, along with a mock tortoise pick guard:

To supplement that lot I bought a nice block of spruce for the bracing. We'll split that down on the bandsaw.

I'll need to sort out some back bracing and some tuning machines & some binding & purfling; but I'm sure I have some bits and pieces in stock.