Guitar Building

Confession: I may well be the world's slowest guitar builder. The latest project- a Telecaster-profiled hollowbody, has been on the workbench for- well, for a long time. In hopes of nudging myself to speed up the so-far-glacial pace, I'm going public with some in-progress photos.

I start with two slabs of poplar, glued and bar-clamped together.

 Next, I use a router and an MDF template to rough out the body shape...

And then cut out cavities in the body. As you can see, I've adopted a benign neglect policy when it comes to dust collection.

 Now I glue together two 1/4" pieces of maple for the face of the guitar body.

Using every clamp I own, I glue the face to the body.

I never cared for those skewed f-holes on the Fender Thinline Telecasters. I copied the classic f-hole from my National archtop and cut it out of the body using files, drills, sandpaper and X-acto knives.

I use a template to rout out the neck pocket in the body, along with cavities for the electronics.

Next step: adding binding to the body and carving a neck- stay tuned!

Peter DeSeve

Time to catch up on some new additions to the Inkwell Studios library, including this one: "A Sketchy Past- The Art of Peter DeSeve," from Akileos Books. DeSeve has been creating brilliant editorial illustration for years, including New Yorker covers, children's books and theatre posters. More recently, he's been doing concept and character art for animated features. Those creatures from "Ice Age" are his, although I maintain there's more life and personality- more animation-  in DeSeve's loose pencil and watercolor sketches than in the CGI versions on the screen. We saw some of his work on display at the Society of Illustrators in New York. Sublime.

WNYBAC BookFest

Another great event in Buffalo- last Saturday's BookFest at the Western New York Book Arts Center. Inside, there were hands-on demonstrations and workshops- printing, calligraphy, bookbinding- and outside, steamroller printing: images were carved out of four-foot square slabs of mdf, inked, laid in the street, covered in linen and pressed using an honest-to-god steamroller. For more info, check out http://wnybookarts.org/

A Midsummer Night's Draw

A few snapshots from last night's drawing rally at Babeville- "A Midsummer Night's Draw." Artists had 45 minutes to sketch, paint, cut, spray and stencil, under the watchful gaze of curious onlookers and an unforgiving clock. Drawings were then auctioned off to benefit Hallwalls. All artists donated their time and art. A great event!