Empire guitars

[4koa]

Re: Empire guitars

straight pieces as far as i know... here's a thread on his purfling technique.. although its more neck on this one

http://p213.ezboard.com/fthornnewsan...picID=25.topic

but i'm assuming he does the body with smaller straight strips

PS: another cool thing ron does on his bodies too, is the same size purfling around the sides of the body where the top wood meets the backing body wood..looks cool as hell
not to mention that all of the paua purfling is included in the base price.. no upcharge ( you can also have none if it's not what your into { don't quote me but i "think" he'll
take off alittle on the base price if you don't want it )

[Soloist1]

Re: Empire guitars

Ah, Abalam. Cheaper and easier to cut than shell blanks. I'm not a fan of the Abalone binding that I have seen on the fretboard. But that thin strip he does looks a lot better. The wider stuff just takes up to much of the fretboard in my opinion. He must have the body contour binding programmed into the CNC to cut the curved pieces properly also. My body and headstock binding on the guitar GMW is building are all cut from real blue paua select blanks. On average they were about 1"x1". I can't really imagine all the work it takes to do small blanks like that by hand. I can't wait to see what the finish product looks like.

[4koa]

Re: Empire guitars

i bet your guitar going to come out awesome,nothing wrong with wanting a complete shell inlay ...alot of handwork, patience,skill to do the inlaying old school like that..

i really never had a problem with abalam .. just too many benefits to using it (IMO)

abalam uses real shell also only thinner(only the backing of it is not shell and that part you don't even see once it's inlayed so visually its looks no different then real shell (contrary to what a certain Vegas jolly man would love people to believe, that it has no real shell in it at all ( nice try Ed)....ahahaha )
it is cheaper and easier to cut then real shell, supposedly you get more yield out of a single shell using the abalam method also/less waste of the actual shell (tree hugging hippie mode on)

again nothing wrong with doing your way.. it's your preference and that cool with me
( maybe i'm just a cheapskate [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )

[Soloist1]

Re: Empire guitars

I have nothing against Abalam for the purfling. I wouldn't use it for inlays. That's only because most inlay guys have told me it's not good for inlays. Basically Lee has one type of Abalone available for inlays and purfling that he uses. He told me if I wanted a specific one that I would have to supply it. I wanted Blue Paua select so I bought a bunch of blanks and sent them to him. He told me blanks would be better to stay consistent. I even asked about the purfling strips but he said to go with the blanks instead. I'm sure the inlay folks did a great job. But after seeing all those little blanks I'm definitely curious as to what the results are going to be. I guess for someone that does it on a regular basis its probably no big deal. Sure looked like a long tough process to me though.

[Soloist1]

Re: Empire guitars

Oh and your definitely right on the mark about the Abalam. You get a lot more surface area. The biggest blanks I could get were about 1 1/2" x 1 1/2". The shells are fairly small for Paua so getting a flat piece of any size is rare. I learned tons of inlay material stuff that I never knew while trying to find the shell for this axe. Ended up buying it at some place called Luthiers Supply. Nice guys. And they took a lot of time giving me lots of details and picking out just the stuff I wanted. Hell they even made templates of my inlays for me in their CAD program. Even an exact to scale neck template of the placement as well. Lee loved that. lol Saved him a bunch of time.

[4koa]

Re: Empire guitars

Sounds cool.. what inlay are you having done? ( if your not keeping it under wraps till it's done )

here's a shot of the various Shark inlays Ron did for my 2nd Thorn in MOP and Black Tahitian pearl

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...1/c88b6ffc.jpg

[Ozz666]

Re: Empire guitars

Chris...I've been waiting to see your GMW for over a year now too! Ever since you told me about it. Can't wait til it's done man!

- Joel

[Soloist1]

Re: Empire guitars

Well it's kind of a crown inlay. But it is actually part of the beast headstock. Top third of the headstock, mainly the horns. Pretty good sized tapering down smaller on the higher frets and two at the 12th. Nothing complicated.

Those shark inlays are cool as hell. I like the ones were they use different material like that. And that Paua fretboard binding looks so much better on a maple neck. It blends better. Especially with that birdseye maple.

Do you know if Ron does inlay work for McNaught? I saw a real cool fretboard on a McNaught that was called Moonscape. Another sweet inlay pattern.

Hey Joel. Soon bro. Lee said right after Christmas. It's been 20 months now. But its going to be worth the wait. We have an awesome trans finish all picked out for it. And I added a few tradional BC Rich touches to my original idea.

[4koa]

Re: Empire guitars

i believe Dave McNaught does his own inlays (now) ron may have done some for him in the past but i'm not 100% positive

more inlay porn.... check this out.. it was a team effort between ron and the owner of the guitar all the stars are individual inlayed pieces of silver and the planets various
species of woods and shells

http://p213.ezboard.com/fthornnewsan...icID=134.topic

(side note the maple top on this guitar was the one i had picked out for my first Thorn but i switched to another top later.. what the frig was i thinking!! hahaha,, my newer top was cool too though

[jazzman]

Re: Empire guitars

Now that is some serious inlay work!

[Soloist1]

Re: Empire guitars

Wow that looks awesome too. To many great inlays out there. Here's a pic of the moonscape one. It's kind of similar.

[jazzman]

Re: Empire guitars

Imagine having to get fret work done on that? I'd be afraid to send it anywhere except to who did the work. then I'd still be worried. That looks good.

[RacerX]

Re: Empire guitars

[ QUOTE ]
I'd be afraid to send it anywhere except to who did the work. then I'd still be worried.

[/ QUOTE ]

No doubt!