We all love to see, hold and (most importantly) PLAY beautiful guitars. That’s what lutherie is all about, to us at least. There’s nothing better than creating an instrument that looks spectacular and sounds just as good. How many times have you heard “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”? Well, I think we can extrapolate that out to “Beauty is in the ear of the beholder!”.

Unfortunately, guitars don’t start out life looking as great as the luthier envisions them to be. Take this freshly glued up blank for instance. It doesn’t look too exciting. It doesn’t play real well either.

The challenge is to craft a visually appealing and sonically appealing instrument from this ordinary wood blank. This particular blank is destined to be a Category 1 Hurricane. That’s the work horse of our custom designed line. A guitar that turns head and ears alike. A guitar that you play night in, night out, gig after gig.

We’ll chronicle the progress on this particular Hurricane all the way from start to finish. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy the process as much as we do.

The slab has evolved into the rough form of a Cyclone. The body on the right is solid maple and will be hollowed out alomost completely. We’ll leave a spot to mount the Bibsby tail piece, but the electronics, bridge and pickups will be on the top.

The top is shown at the left and is AA Sitka Spruce. It will be shaped in a concave form to match the unique shape of the Cyclone body. Of course, with a semi-hollow body, the top isn’t a crucial as with an archtop or flat-top acuostic. Extreme care must be exercised so that proper tonality is expressed when the instrument is being played.

It’s always exciting to see a new guitar taking shape at this stage of construction. It’s a bit difficult to envision this instrument with gold hardware and shiny black laquer finish right now.

This particular guitar doesn’t look all that exciting right now. And, truthfully, it’s not too exciting; it’s just a slab of wood. That’s the humble beginning for them all. That’s where the excitement starts. We never get tired of selecting wood and envisioning the guitar that’s going to emerge.

This hefty chunk of maple will become a semi-hollow body Cyclone. Yes, maple is a heavy, dense wood and isn’t necessarily the first choice for guitar bodies. In this case we’re building a semi-hollow body, so much of the weight will be eliminated. The maple will retain a strong frame.

In this photo, Bill is applying a layer of clear coat to the bass guitar in STORM’s specially built paint room. On this particular guitar, we used Sherwin-Williams Ultra 7000 automotive paint and a matching clear coat. We selected this specific paint to achieve the look that the customer wanted. It’s a pearl white metalic paint with a nice depth to it. This paint is applied in an primmer, base coat, mid coat and clear coat format. Yes, it’s a complicated finish and that’s how we like to work. 

This finish material is not like your off-the-shelf spay can paint. It’s rather difficult to mix and handle. It also requires the use a NIOSH approved respirator. It’s nasty stuff to sniff, but its worth the effort.

We proposed four possible styles of stripes for this custom bass. The customer chose the single thick stripe, single thin stripe design. It creates a good, balanced look for the guitar. Here’s the final product hanging in the paint room drying.

The next step will be to apply a tough, durable clear coat finish to protect the pearl paint. We’re anxious to see this instrument assembled with all of it’s gold hardware on. The pearl, maroon, gold combination should make this a very classy bass guitar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a prime example of the way we work with customers on key decisions for their instruments. Jeremy told us that he wants a maroon stripe to compliment the pearl finish on his custom bass. The question is just what should the stripe look like? We’ve come up with a couple of options to start the discussion. None of these are likely to be the final design, but it’s easier to see what you don’t want than visualize exactly what you want. 

Post a comment an let us know which direction you think would work best. Of course, the customer will have the final say and we’ll post a photo showing his decision.

I’ve been talking about truss rods with my good friend Jim for a while. We keep going back and forth on the merits of double barrel truss rods versus the more traditional single rod style. Certainly, single rods have been time tested. I think, however, that there’s still plenty if room for innovation in guitar building. Double barrel truss rods are an innovation that we use at STORM.

Now, my buddy Jim knows a thing or two about guitar design and construction. I’ve learned a lot from talking with him over the years. So when he tells me that he worries about the pressure that a double barrel rod puts on the fret board, it makes me think.

This disussion led me to do some testing. I’ve learned that both styles of truss rods put pressure on the neck and the fret board, just in diffent places. Single barrels put more strain on the heel and the nut end because that’s where the are anchored in to the neck. Double barrels spread the strain out over a greater distance. This can mean that there is more stress on the middle at the finger board, but since the stress is spread out over a greater area the neck will bend more evenly.

Well, it all boils down to this: STORM Custom Guitars will build your neck with either style truss rod. As with everything we do, we build everything to your specs. Who else cares about this level of detail in YOUR guitar?

    

We have Jeremey’s bass all primed and ready to paint. It’s not quite as simple as it sounds, though. This body has about 12 coats of white primer on it. It was then wet sanded with 400 grit sandpaper until the finish is like porcelain. Paint never hides anything on guitars, but it will show even the smallest imperfection. Notice that we have a “working neck” on the body for this part of the process. It lets us handle the piece with ease and clamp it into our painting vice.

The next step will be to spray the pearl base and mid coats on. It’s getting exciting now! 

STORM has a great opportunity to work with an exciting bassist to create a custom Thunderstorm. We’ve been looking forward to building the instrument for a while. It’s going to be cool, no doubt about it!

Here we’re cutting the body out with the bandsaw. No, we don’t cut one handed, it just looks that way in this photo. At the customers request, this bass will be built with a solid maple body to get a crisp, brilliant tone. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the final coat of nitrocellulose lacquer is applied to a guitar body, it’s imperative that it sits for at least a week before the final wet sanding and buffing. Well, Sherri’s custom acoustic has been hanging around drying for about a week now, so we’re anxious to get to it.

We’ll probably start on it tomorrow (8-July). First it will get sanded with 1000 grit and then with 2500 grit. Before the final hand polishing, the bridge will be mounted and the electronics will be put in.

Finally, after that we’ll buff it out with a wheel and finish it up by hand.

If you haven’t seen Sherri play live, you owe it to yourself to do so. Check out her website at sherrimullen.com.