Welcome to the New Year! Through the holiday’s and into the new year, T.K.’s been doing overtime in the shop working on his new guitar pickup. He wants it to sound like a cross between a Stratosphere and a Charlie Christian, his two favorite pickups, and it’s constructed like a Bigsby. He has talked about this for years! T.K. still has a ways to go until he’ll be happy with the final product, but we’re hopeing to have some production units for sale by summer. Stay tuned!

Just shipped out a batch of Walnut Cutting Boards that were purchased as Christmas gifts. If you’re looking for a unique gift this month, or for Valentine’s Day, feel free to contact us for more info.

I’ve been moonlighting the past few months doing custom inlayed pickguards and name plaques. If you’re a serious musician I don’t think there’s a better way to get your name out than having it on your guitar or instrument.

It’s also a known fact that my pickguards and name plaques will help promote record sales, and to boost show attendance through brand recognition. Ha Ha!!

My inlay jobs are 100% crafted by hand. So if you’re a serious musician drop me a line and have me build you a custom guard or plaque. You can see some of my recent inlay projects here.

We’re now offering lacquered 5 hole Garolite pickguards for teles. They’re $45 plus shipping.  For those of you that care what the backside looks like, yes, they have the correct over spray ring. If you’re interested in a custom pickguard, you can see some examples here.

I haven’t had much time to work on this thing in the last few weeks, but I have made some progress… I found a really nice piece of kiln-dried maple for the neck and I cut out the pickguard and armrest out of .125’’ thick garolite. Since I don’t gig that often anymore, I wasn’t going to put my name on this guitar, but the giant pickguard was just begging for some kind of advertisement. Here are a few pics…

Putting the final touches on seven new Wagon Stations custom fabricated for Andrea Zittel.

This was a project that I did a few years back, nine to be exact, that took more time than money. I saw a picture of Walt Rose’s ’27 T roadster in the book “The American Hot Rod” when it came out. I knew that I wanted something similar for my roadster pickup. The foundry patterns were made using 1’’ thick poplar, polyester body filler, and 3/8’’ aluminum plate.

I made the posts longer than needed and cut them down a ½’’ to ¼’’ at a time until I was happy with how it looked. Here’s some photos of the process.

For the last few years I’ve been pretty good about not taking on any new personal  projects as I whittle away at the list I currently have. I’ve been making some progress, but last month while in San Diego a friend said I could have this old Kay if I wanted to do something with it. I took a quick look and said “sure, I’ll take it!”  Its a late 50′s Kay model K-161 with a screwed up neck and no hardware. I’ve always wanted to build a neck from scratch but never really had a good reason to do so. Now I do! I want it to look like a guitar Paul Bigsby would have modified.

Last Sunday it didn’t take much to get the finger board off, and the dovetail joint apart. I also made a couple of pick guard patterns. This proved to be a little tricker, trying to hide the existing  holes and still look Bigsbyish. I plan on using a pair of my pickups that I’m working on, the vibrato I had in my parts stash. I’ll post as I make progress so check back from time to time. Here’s some mock up photos. I’m leaning towards mock up #3.

I’ve been getting a few request to do pickguard inlay lately. It’s kind of nice to get a job that I can do while sitting down listening to music. I’m currently on a Bill DeArango kick, great stuff, his rolled off tone and rapid fire guitar solos make me crazy! Anyhow, as for the pickguards, each letter is hand drawn and cut out using an old Delta scroll saw. They’re then carefully traced on to the pickguard and the negative area is cut out for a nice tight fit. The letters are then glued in place, sanded flush, covered with 4 to 5 coats of nitrocellulose lacquer, and rubbed out to a high gloss finish. If you need any inlay work done, contact us for a quote.

TK played around with various shapes of Cutting Boards a while ago. After selling out of the initial run and using them ourselves, he has decided to stick with one simple shape in three sizes. Each board, made of Walnut, is individually Handcrafted by TK. Not only are they practical and easy on your knives, but they look amazingly beautiful stacked up in the kitchen!  We like to think of the small cutting board as a “cocktail” board, perfect for cutting citrus for your favorite drink, the medium, great as a bread board and the large, for the bigger jobs in the kitchen.

We recently gave one as a wedding gift and the recipient said she didn’t want to use it “because it would get scratched up!” We explained that that’s the beauty of it. These boards will last a lifetime and look even better with visable use. Like everyone should, she needs to “feed” the board with food grade mineral oil or a commercial paste once in a while to keep the wood in the best condition, and of course hand wash with soapy water, never in the dishwasher.

TK’s cutting boards will be available for sale soon on this site, as well in various retail outlets. Feel free to contact us for info. Also, while relaxing over the long holiday weekend, check out our House Tour over at Alice in Designland. Thanks Dia!