SerpentineGtars

SG is sadly leaving projectguitar.com to concentrate on its online presence over at sevenstring.org - thank you to all of you for your support during my time here

First time using Luminlay (glow-in-the-dark) side dot markers from Japan - a little treat for a client of mine, replacing the original 2mm black side dots...

Twins... Sort of. Two old-school Super-strat style Alder bodies nearly ready for stage one of finishing, prior to going out to Switzerland for some airbrush-magic by Mr Wohlwend - http://www.winycustom.ch/ These will come back to me afterwards for their clear coat and assembly - including Schaller Lockmeister and M6 locking tuners, BKP/Seymour Duncan pickups and some custom wiring.

Been playing around with some Quilted Maple over the past two days... This is a replacement body for the earlier "Quilted Maple custom DC", which suffered some severe cupping and had to be scrapped. Had I attempted to level out the original body, I would've lost too much thickness (almost 6mm front and back combined). On top of that, there would be no guarantee that the body would've remained stable.

Is a nice combo, Walnut and Wenge. Just a couple of spare laminates I had lying around, thought they looked good together. There is a slight flame in the Walnut so I'm hoping that is revealed when the neck is carved and clear coat sprayed. The car came off worse, thankfully.

Following this... The past six weeks have been a bit slow in the Serpentine Guitars' workshop. However, I did take some time to plan and start work on a new prototype/demo/guitar-for-myself build - Xothermic #1 (6-string, Mahogany body, Black Walnut/Wenge/Black Walnut neck, Indian Rosewood fretboard, Gotoh Tune-O-Matic bridge (recessed) and 301 machine heads, DiMarzio X2N pickup (bridge only) and black gloss finish). So far, all routing/mounting work complete and the neck/heel is ready to carve before we move on to spraying... More updates (new/old builds) coming soon

You may or may not remember in 2014, Serpentine Guitars built an old-school style SS for Swiss airbrush extraordinaire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKiz2V9KgvY. Well, we have been asked to build a further two guitars; both of which will also have Winy's amazing, original artwork applied, and both of which feature inlay work by VanWhy Inlay & Design, USA. Here's the latest on the MOP in Rosewood inlays - complete and ready to ship back to me here in the UK... Photos of the completed guitars as soon as they are complete with artwork.

Ah, yes, the quilt does vary depending on the angle and lighting. The left side looks more how you're describing it then the right, but if you look down on the guitar from directly above, it looks the same both sides. I did almost wonder if the bookmatched sides were marked incorrectly at first, but these are definitely the two mirror-image sides. I also Google'd images of "Quilted Maple" and the figure does appear like this quite often.

Thanks ScottR. The carve on this body is concave, yes. I prefer the look of a concave carve and tend to do all my own carves like this unless otherwise requested. The whole body will be stained a dark brown (we've yet to do some test samples) and then shot with a clear coat.

The Serpentine Guitars workshop; refurbished with new workbenches, planer thicknesser and pillar drill... Behind the camera is space for the new bandsaw (on order) and additional workbench/wood store space...

Our workshop has just had a complete overhaul, including brand new machinery and tools, but you're going to have to wait to see pictures of the new shop space. Instead, as we get back into the swing of things (making guitars, that is), here's a better sneak preview of that Quilted Maple carve-top DC...

That's the peak of the carve. I tend to carve/sand it this way, as I will keep that sharp line at the neck end of the body and then round it off slightly at this end. Like this...

I will sand the edges over a little but they won't be scooped out a la PRS style, no. Unfortunately, the Quilt Maple tears out easy and I didn't get a sharp enough edge to leave them as they are.

We have several builds that we're working on at the moment but here's a sneak preview of a custom DC Quilted Maple on Mahogany with carve-top that is currently on the workbench and due to be completed next...

Thanks SR. The finish on the neck is my favourite; Tru-Oil.