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. 

We completed Sherri Mullen’s custom acoustic today pretty much on (revised) schedule. Everything went together well and the finish came out just as we planned. It’s always exciting to deliver a finished piece and this one is extra special for us. It’s a very special guitar because of it’s complex and intricate inlays. It’s also very special because it’s going to such dear friend of ours.

We started the final steps for the finish on Sherri Mullen’s custom acoustic. In this photo we’re wet sanding with 1000 grit using Paraffin Oil as a lubricant. There’s no substitute for patience and perseverance on this part. It’s really neat to see the finish starting to emerge. We can’t wait to complete the finish and see how this one sounds!

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.

Welcome to STORM’s blog. As we get started with a new addition to our web site, here’s what we’ll be bringing you via this tool:

• News about STORM. This is a great way to have an opt-in newsletter for our friends. You can decide if you want to hear from us and when you get the news. Please subscribe via RSS to receive automatic updates.
• Updates on projects. As we build new custom guitars, we’ll post updates and photographs on this blog so you can see what’s happening.
• Guitar Discussions. From time to time we’ll ask questions and provide opinions on guitars, building and playing. Join in the discussion and let us (and everyone else) know what you’re thinking.

We hope this will be a great way for us all to stay in-touch. We’re looking forward to the dialog.