Corvus Guitar Works - builds, paint, mods/servicing, Cambs

Corvus · December 2022

Quick one to say Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a good one. Everyone I've met from here has been a man of oak, it's been a real pleasure.

Me and Ms Crow managed to catch covid this week so work halted as I seem to have turned into a cat - brief bouts of activity followed by tremendous kipping. Back at it soon.

For completeness I'm putting this pic here, I knew Si and me liked it but was knocked out by the positive response on the guitar section thread - 60 wows.. amazing and cheered me up no end being generally wasted this last week.
Will be catching up on work in a few days & updating people as & when. Cheers till then.

paulnb57 · December 2022

Corvus said:

Quick one to say Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a good one. Everyone I've met from here has been a man of oak, it's been a real pleasure.

Me and Ms Crow managed to catch covid this week so work halted as I seem to have turned into a cat - brief bouts of activity followed by tremendous kipping. Back at it soon.

For completeness I'm putting this pic here, I knew Si and me liked it but was knocked out by the positive response on the guitar section thread - 60 wows.. amazing and cheered me up no end being generally wasted this last week.
Will be catching up on work in a few days & updating people as & when. Cheers till then.

Bill, I think this is one of the best guitar finishes Ive ever seen

Hope you get well soon…

grappagreen · December 2022

Corvus said:

Quick one to say Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a good one. Everyone I've met from here has been a man of oak, it's been a real pleasure.

Me and Ms Crow managed to catch covid this week so work halted as I seem to have turned into a cat - brief bouts of activity followed by tremendous kipping. Back at it soon.

For completeness I'm putting this pic here, I knew Si and me liked it but was knocked out by the positive response on the guitar section thread - 60 wows.. amazing and cheered me up no end being generally wasted this last week.
Will be catching up on work in a few days & updating people as & when. Cheers till then.

Hope you and the wife are on the mend Bill! Rest up and take it easy.

Thanks for the stuff you’ve done this year and especially the Charvel refin - it’s a work of art!

If I don’t speak to you before have a fantastic New Year.

Si

roberty · December 2022

paulnb57 said:

Corvus said:

Quick one to say Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a good one. Everyone I've met from here has been a man of oak, it's been a real pleasure.

Me and Ms Crow managed to catch covid this week so work halted as I seem to have turned into a cat - brief bouts of activity followed by tremendous kipping. Back at it soon.

For completeness I'm putting this pic here, I knew Si and me liked it but was knocked out by the positive response on the guitar section thread - 60 wows.. amazing and cheered me up no end being generally wasted this last week.
Will be catching up on work in a few days & updating people as & when. Cheers till then.

Bill, I think this is one of the best guitar finishes Ive ever seen

Hope you get well soon…

Have to agree with this (both things)

Corvus · December 2022

Thanks kindly chaps!

Corvus · January 2023

Couple of minor things. This only came in for a setup but dang it's pretty -

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/misc/ryan-jm.jpg

It's got a Descendant trem which feels great, not so keen on the brushed finish but it's a very nice thing. Bridge from the same source too.

Corvus · January 2023

I still like to muck about with things in the eves or weekends, and over Xmas with covid and then the fluey bug right after, I did bits of things as & when possible. Got a 1960s lamp. Was black and rusty, so stripped it down, derusted and cleaned & polished etc and put together with new wiring. It's bench bracket is mahogany + flame maple : )) All very unnecessary but it's handy lamp, a good reach and plenty bright

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/misc/lamp-1-700.jpg

Corvus · January 2023

And a very unnecessary neck rest made from scrap bits. Made the maple-black-maple purfling/banding and mitred the corners, I was happy they fitted well with no gaps.
The upper rest bit is just screwed on, so the bottom bit could be made into a stash box I suppose, maybe for plectrums or other small bits the workshop monkeys like to move at night -

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/misc/neck-rest-700-1.jpg

TTony · January 2023

Why?

Well, because I can, and it's pretty, so why not!

SeriousQ - where do you get your decent thickness/quality cork from??

Corvus · January 2023

Hi Tony, just random fleabay hunting - some's self-stick and some not. I've used natural leather for bits like this before too but the price of it looked a bit steep just now, so cork it is. You can get pretty thick leather too.

Corvus · February 2023

I thought things would be quiet-ish after Xmas, but not a bit of it. Lots of setups & minor mods, some slightly unusual things like ageing hardware, stripping neck finishes and ageing the raw wood. Lots of paint.

Sometimes I get the feeling people are maybe slightly embarrassed about bringing in lower-budget guitars, but they get the same care as anything else. Like an old cheapie Squier Strat came in, it was unplayable, ropey state and sounded ropey, but it was the guy's first guitar. It went out very usable with a fettle and new pickups, new electrics.

I'm probably not doing it right but sometimes I give small sneaky discounts or do extra bits without telling people, like this young girl with a guitar in a bad state from a previous setup. Or a young lad who'd saved two years to buy a Strat that had issues, taken it to a shop who did a really hideous setup on it, just unplayable. Other problems with it too.
They'll never know and it won't make any odds to me or them really but hopefully they get a guitar that gives 'em a chance to get going with instead of putting them off.

Anyway. Fair bit of paint in at the mo. We're possibly moving so I'm not taking in any more paint just now, until I can gauge what will definitely be done in time.

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/misc/paint-rack.jpg

He's with me whenever possible, but is a bit of a slacker:

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/misc/sleeping-assistant.jpg

Corvus · February 2023

An Eggle 96 has just gone out the door. The owner hated the shoreline-ish gold and the checking (razor), and went for black. The plastics got blacked out too with the corned beef plates ditched for BWB ones.

Blackest black I could muster. Here's a reflection -

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/misc/eggle-black-3.jpg

And more pics -

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/misc/eggle-black-1.jpg

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/misc/eggle-black-front.jpg

Corvus · March 2023

Here's a few pics of Si's Hamer Chaparall. There's something about this that's really nice to play, but it had to get stripped down to sort the paint out.
I managed to lose some pics so this is the only one showing the colour it was wearing, the headstock paint isn't quite the right shape as it happens

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/pink-hamer/si-hamer-original-head.jpg

It got stripped to bare wood. As ever the wood on these around this time is lovely top-quality stuff. The ebony fretboard is great, the neck is three-piece maple (extra strips making up the head). Light mahogany body.
After getting into a tinted primer stage, it got a refret in 6000s. The existing frets were about OK but worn and with limited life, makes sense to do this now

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/pink-hamer/si-hamer-refret.jpg

Corvus · March 2023

Reference pics are hard to come by and with varying light and the cameras used, it's hard to get a clear idea of colour. I hope this is something close. Nitro pink with pearl over it - can't really show the pearly glow just now but better pics will come later

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/pink-hamer/si-hamer-pink-1.jpg

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/pink-hamer/si-hamer-pink-2.jpg

Yeah. Failure to spangle. I'll try again later.

Corvus · March 2023

I haven't been able to push on further with my still-not-really-named model, other work comes in and needs doing so.. But this prototype is being used by a band who's things I've been working on, 11-12 guitars & basses. It's going out on a mini-tour, feedback is all positive so far but it's always good to find out what's good and less good both-

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/kensei_v2/kensei-v2-body-2-700.jpg

TTony · March 2023

Corvus said:

Flattie?

Corvus · March 2023

Pretty flat there, but he's a German Longhaired Pointer. Or if you meet people on a walk he's a 'nice setter' or a 'big spaniel'

We did have a Flatcoat before, he was a good boy.

TTony · March 2023

Ahhhh - just reminded me of the flattie we had a few years back.

Corvus · March 2023

Fabulous dogs, love 'em.

Corvus · March 2023

Epi Crestwood Custom

Gibson-made from 1962. It's had a life, basically getting a restoration to state reflecting it's age; full strip & paint, fix what's needed, refret. I thought about doing a separate thread but think I'll do updates here.
It's some work alright with a few challenges but I'm liking it so far.

Among the issues -

Repaint that makes it look like a toy guitar
Tuner holes roughly chopped out to fit Schallers, headstock facing damage around the holes
Pickup cavities roughly chopped to fit PAFs at some point
Odd goings on with the side dots
Pickguard isn't original, it was sanded & painted white underneath. No idea what decade or model it's from, not any recentish reissue

There's nothing really tragically off, no neck or head breaks for instance. Was a time old guitars weren't worth much of anything so mods were common. Now everything seems to be 'original' and ones with DIY mods thin on the ground...

Corvus · March 2023

Here it is. I took the paint off the p/g underside, hope to polish it back later and add the white centre stripe.

The pickup cavities are staying as-is. They're hidden by surrounds and the pickguard and they are part of it's history. Routing out a chunk of body and letting in new one, re-doing the cavities would make it **look** original but also be **less** original? I guess.
Purely a personal thing but to me old guitars that had mods are every bit as interesting as all-originals, if not more so.

Good things: the original pickups and wiring are there. We have a modern trem to fit, they are a bit different to vintage but it'll look right enough. Should a vintage one come up it's a straightforward swap.

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/crestwood/epi-crestwood-1.jpg

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/crestwood/epi-crestwood-2.jpg

Teyeplayer · March 2023

Corvus said:

It's going out on a mini-tour, feedback is all positive so far but it's always good to find out what's good and less good both-

Still love this and so glad it’s getting out and seeing some use: I still hope I can get one of these someday.

Corvus · March 2023

Cheers Jay, hope all is well. I hoped to push on with these but other work comes in & pays bills, so it's sidelined for now. If/when we move I'll be going at it again.

Corvus · March 2023

The side dots. There's deepish holes but someone had inset dark red and amber thin dots, surely to suit some previous paint but they were now invisible. And there was white paint or filler in & around them. Signs of previous digging.

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/crestwood/epi-crestwood-4.jpg

I started stripping paint. There's the red, silver, plus a bright white, a thick ol' layer of creamy white, very thick grey primer, gold, and either black or very dark blue.
The paint was seriously thick.

Did the neck first, going very carefully round the headstock to save the serial.
The headstock face is well aged and has some blobs of unidentified matter.. possibly household enamel or the like. The outer face edges are a bit lost.
It'll get Klusons but will need conversion bushes. Plugging and re-drilling isn't really on, I want to save as much of the headstock face as possible, plugs would show up and look odd.

So much paint on the body.. loads.. it took a while.

Corvus · March 2023

At some point a tailpiece was fitted and the trem screw holes filled. The added tailpiece bushing holes were in danger of breaking out the other side.
I don't have a decent half inch plug cutter and generally they make undersize plugs. So -

Put a wood block in the vice (didn't have a honduran or cuban scrap deep enough so it's khaya/African mahogany). Chuck up the 15mm plug cutter and go, but not all the way through the block.
Swap to a brad drill, buzz down into the plug's end. Glue in a dowel.
Chop the "floor" off the wood block to free the plugs.
Chuck a dowel up in the drill and take the diameter down. Chop the dowel end off. Now have a close-fit plug and it's swift to do.

The body holes aren't clean/sharp so I ran a countersunk in there to deliberately make a small 'moat' that fine filler can go in. Usually stops these sort of things showing in future.

Image: https://corvusguitarworks.com/images/crestwood/epi-crestwood-5.jpg

impmann · March 2023

Is this the right sort of vintage Trem you are looking for?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204279875673?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=gCDW9LcmRuK&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=fvduHkbRTP2&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Corvus · March 2023

Cheers for that - I'll pass it on to the owner, see if he fancies going for it. A fairly rare find I should think.

grappagreen · March 2023

Corvus said:

Reference pics are hard to come by and with varying light and the cameras used, it's hard to get a clear idea of colour. I hope this is something close. Nitro pink with pearl over it - can't really show the pearly glow just now but better pics will come later

Yeah. Failure to spangle. I'll try again later.

Haven't been around due to some 'life challenges' recently. I'm absolutely sure this will look awesome!

I do like an understated finish..

Si

Corvus · March 2023

Glad you're back with us, catch up soon Si.

Corvus · March 2023

Marco's Strat pre-flatting and a final sheen short of full gloss, with dummy spare p/g for seeing the colour kind of thing- it's shooting for faded fiesta red -

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Corvus Guitar Works - builds, paint, mods/servicing, Cambs

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