progress has been slow. lots of junk has been happening lately. both good and not so good. one good thing that has had me occupied lately, is that i fixed up a dilapidated 60's gibson melody maker for a good old friend's 16-year old son. i shipped it to him on wednesday and he received it in the mail today. i did it pro bono and he loves it. i refretted and refinished it, and made a new pickguard for it, and totally rewired it, with new pots. so that makes me feel good. here he is immediately after opening the box.
it has a lawrence keystone tele neck pickup on it, and man does it sound goooood.
so with that out of the way, on with my OM.
when i bought the brw, the back was joined with a very wide strip down the middle of EIRW. the wide flatsawn strip was a bad idea. it made the center of the back very weak and I didn't much like the looks of it either. I cut it apart and am about to rejoin it.
in the past week i've glued on my kerfed lining. i used the reverse kind.
it was pointed out to me that my end block was kinda massive. so i started removing material from it with a small plane. i was going for 3/4" thick.
but then i bought this drawing from John Arnold this week, of a '32 OM-18, and the end block on this one is even smaller, 5/8".
my sandpapered wheel motor thing works well, it removed material from the ends of my upper transverse brace in a hurry. i'll keep going on it and do the rest of my braces next.
The angle on the X-brace on that '32 OM-18 is just about exactly 100 degrees.
I've posted pictures of my ibeam in my ceiling above my utility area workbench on this site too many times, I know. I was fond of it, but the problem is that it is outside of the enclosed area I made with a vapor barrier, so I had to make a new go bar deck, inside my climate-controlled space.
here it is. she may not look like much, kid, but she's got it where it counts (as han solo would say). total cost: about $10?
there are notched x's both above and below the deck.
and here are my go bars. they are spruce, 1/4" x 3/4". the short ones on the right are for clamping top and back to rim. the tall ones on the left are for gluing bracing to top and back.
