Brrr!!!!

So what to do with my Sunday off?

Snowboarding? Hmm, very tempting with all that lovely snow... but no.

Or I could sit inside with the heating on, eating pizza and drinking wine.

No. I won't do that cos that's silly.

No, I know what I'll do, I'll go outside and stand in my freezing shed all day. That's a MUCH better idea! Well, you've got to suffer for your art, right?

So with ice cold hands and steamed up goggles, I got the neck pocket routed and angled, and drilled and fitted the bridge and tailpiece.

Went back inside to the comfort of central heating and had a test fit to make sure the bridge position was ok and the neck was sitting straight. And all was good! :)

I'll get the pickup and cavity routs done on Wednesday, and then it's on to the fun bit: carving!

Oh no! Snow!

Day 2 of the wonderful challenge, and the weather decides to show its face and ruin it for everyone! Well, some of them taking part didn't want to venture outside but I worked round it. To be fair, it didn't really snow much here, but I did have some outdoors cutting to do and there was no way I was doing it in the dark, cold and wet. So I emptied one of my sheds and rigged up some electrics to it. Lo and behold, I was able to router round the template to get a nice clean body! And all from the relative comfort of a 4'x6' shed. Luxury!Not much cleaning up to be done on the edges, which is great. In case you're wondering, it's based on an ESP Viper, and I've drawn on the lines for the body carving. I wasn't entirely sure what wood I'd ended up buying. Initially it looked like mahogany, but having cut it and seen the end grain, I'm pretty sure it's cherry. It was hard to tell in the timber yard as it was heavily varnished and also had bonding agent on the underside. But cherry's nice!

Tools!

Ok, so here's the plan. I've got a donor neck but I want to build a new body for it. Having tried various sources I finally found a length of quality hardwood at my local timber reclamation yard. It's 50mm thick and cost me a paltry £7.50! Bargain. It's long enough for 3 bodies, so the wood for this build comes in at £2.50. Not bad! I cut it to length and then reduced the thickness using a combination of plane, router and sander. I cut a body template from MDF and used that on the wood to rough cut the shape with a jigsaw. Aren't tools great?

Yep, you guessed it! I ran out of sun. I just had enough light to do the rough cut but then I called it a day. A good start!

And so it begins...

The £100 guitar challenge 2009 is GO GO GO!
Some ingenious people over on the musicradar.com forum have laid down the gauntlet for all who want to try: can you put together a guitar for no more than £100, and complete it within a month? That's the kind of challenge I like!

So, question 1: Can I build a guitar for under £100? Well, of course I can. I can buy a guitar brand new for that money so of course it's feasible to make one.
Question 2: Can I complete it within a month? Now that's a different story. I've got a day job, I don't have a workshop, it's February, and living in the north of Scotland means I run out of daylight for working outside by the time I get home!

What am I going to do...???