Jeffrey Jones' latest relief-carved 6-string, "Nocturne for iO" [Pictures] - created 01-11-2009

Jones, Jeffrey - 01/11/2009.02:09:33

Hello, all. I recently completed this instrument - a carved 6-string electric with an organic scroll motif. I designed the scroll pattern from scratch specifially to fit this particular original guitar shape of mine. I constantly study historic motifs so I can replicate various styles spontaneously without having to search for a pattern that fits the piece I'm adding ornamentation to. It's pretty interesting to get into the headspace of the original stylists and discover their logic.

The guitar is semi-hollow, constructed of big leaf maple with a walnut back. The joint of the two-piece back is obvious, but both pieces are from the exact same board. The neck is big leaf maple and sports two carbon fiber rods flanking the dual-action trussrod. The fretboard is ebony, 24 frets, 12" radius, 24.625" scale.

The electronics consist of a mini-humbucker housed in a maple cover and an L.R.Baggs piezo T-bridge. THe humbucker is wired to a single volume control and a separate jack than the T-bridge, which requires an offboard preamp. There are a large number of performance options this way, even though the onboard wiring is fairly minimal. I, personally, like playing through a blending preamp and wah-wah pedal for a tone control.

It's finished with Watco Danish oil. Normally, I use a lot of Tru-oil, but lately I've been doing more and more penetrating oil finishes, sanding to 1200 or 1500 for a super slick surface.

If anyone has any questions about the specs, please feel free to ask. I'll try to include some good shots of the details. The headstock logo and the fretboard finial are my own favorite details.

Nice design and execution on the carving!

Great looking guitar.

That is a really beautiful guitar. Amazing carving. Perfect shape.

Wonderful job, very nice!

Unbelievable! Your sense of style and shape is amazing.

Have you ever thought of doing a tutorial on how you do the carving? I'd love to see one.

Beautiful....Ditto on Mike D's tutorial idea.

Yeah, show us how to do this!

Wow! I know I would not have the patience or skill to do something REMOTELY that nice.

Seems like I've been waiting for ever to see this thing completed. I had the same Idea of doing a relief carved motif based on shotgun engraving. Then I saw yours and didn't want to look like a copy cat. I've been checking up on this one every week or so on your site for progress pics. Seeing as how I'd decided not to step on your toes with this one I've had to live vicariously through those progress shots.

Great job. Bravo.

Daaaaamn. Yummy. Do a bass, do a bass! ;o)

I am thoroughly impressed with that carving - and the rest of the guitar is pretty nice too!

Cool. Yeah a tutorial on relief carving. I have a book on carving but haven't had the time to give it a try or the cash for some nice carving chisels.

Wow..!!! No words..!

Hey, thanks for the comments! As far as a tutorial goes... yikes. I have no idea how to demonstrate this stuff in such a way that anyone would get much out of it. My methodology literally only consists of drawing the design, transferring it to the guitar, and carving for the next 100+ hours. I've got no gimmicks, tricks, or shortcuts.

Once I transfer the drawing, I carve out the background to leave a blocked positive silhouette. I eyeball the depth of the background as I go to make it as consistent as possible. After that, on decorative motif like this, I improvise the forms and details starting at one end and working toward the other. If I carved this pattern again, it'd look different, because I freehand and improvise so much. My familiarity with a whole range of motifs helps immensely.

Toolwise, I use a flexible shaft with a handpiece about the size of a Sharpie marker, several different sized burrs - almost all spherical, woodcarving gouges, carving knives and tiny scalpel blades, riffler files, and sandpaper... the usual suspects for woodcarving.

As far as bas relief carving is concerned - particularly figurative - you have to be able to create the illusion of depth even though you've only got about a quarter of an inch to work with. One of my best friends is a sculptor for the US Mint in Philadelphia and we've discussed on numerous occasions how much more difficult relief carving is than carving fully in the round. It helps that we both have 50,000+ hours of sculpting experience each. I kid you not.

What I think is the real "secret" is just taking an absurd amount of time to refine the forms slowly in multiple passes. The slowest part is the clean-up. That's the dealbreaker for most people who get impatient. I have 200+ hours in this instrument - about the same number of hours I put into a 12" toy sculpt. Oh, yeah, here's the other secret: books on tape.

For some carvings, I even do several clay studies before I ever touch a knife to the wood. That way I'm intimately familiar with the form before I begin. Once I start carving, I use the clay studies as a visual reference. I don't use pointing devices or pantographs, because I don't need to be that precise, nor do I want to lock myself out of being spontaneous if I want.

If I had one piece of carving advice to give, it would be to just dive in and cut like you mean it. That way, if you botch something, it'll look so bold that everyone will think you did it on purpose! I'll be happy to answer any specific questions as best I can. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to avoid a tutorial. I'll have to think about it, because there's so much of this that I do unconsciously.

Jonathan: It did seem to take forever, didn't it? Thanks for being patient. When I got close to the end of the project, I had to take a scheduled road trip that broke my stride. When I got back, I let the piece sit for a bit as I got a few different projects out of the way. I also had a bad bout with Meniere's disease - a middle ear thing that knocked me way off my game.

Hey, feel free to carve your own scrollwork guitar, dude. I love that gun engraving stuff. The reason I drew my own original pattern was so that I couldn't be accused of copying anyone else's work. Plus, designing's my bag. From now on, 95% of my instruments will be fairly ornamentally carved, so if you want to beat me to the punch on a motif, you better get crackin'! :)

Marcus, it may be next year before I can get to it, but I do plan on carving a bass or two.

Here's an example of what the drawing looked like transferred onto the guitar body. I glued the drawing to the guitar face with a spray mount adhesive. Then, I cut through the paper pattern with an Xacto knife. After weeding out the background, I painted the wood through the pattern, like a stencil. This gives me a clearer look at what I'm carving and distinquishes the positive scrolls from the negative background.

For a comparison to that last pic, this is a progress shot of the carving. You can clearly see just how much of this I make up in my head as I go along. Just designing the scrolls to lay in such a way that they look randomly natural yet evenly distributed and "balanced" with each other is a whole different ballgame, too.

Thanks for the in-progress pictures.

I recognize that the layout/design process involves having an artistic eye, above and beyond simply removing wood.

Thanks Jeffrey, that's very helpful! Now if you could, how about a 5-part YouTube series showing the entire process.

Flawless. Experience is the best teacher there is.

The only thing about the whole guitar for me is the knob. Seems like it should have some carve on the sides, or be done in ebony.

Do you like carving in maple vs. other woods?

Thanks for the info on carving, you are a true craftsman. I can only wish for the patience required to carve something like that, I'm still failing golf.

Steve, I was just trying to figure out how to break down my carving process into specific steps that were more interesting than watching grass grow. There are lots of really skilled folks here with woodworking experience who know how to remove wood, so I wanted to emphasize the design aspect.

My carving process is really no different than any other woodcarving technique, I just take it to the next level. Not everyone has that kind of time. If I break it down into a 5-part process, you all know steps 1-4. Step 5 is the killer that takes almost as long as steps 1-4 combined. It amounts to simply removing all the tool marks and tear-outs.

I have an odd little saying that epitomizes my work philosophy. Borrowed from author Frank Herbert's Dune, "The slow blade penetrates the shield."

Jeff, I like maple and cherry, because they're closed-grained. They allow for some real tight detail, whereas walnut or mahogany has some open grain that can be fairly annoying when doing such detail. I do work with them, though. I love walnut. It's a good local wood for me that I can get by just driving a mile or two up the road to my sawyer. I usually get my maple from the Pacific Northwest, however, unless my sawyer has made a deal and gets in a couple truckloads of maple logs. We have what's called "soft maple" around here and it's probably one of my favorites for tone, but it's a different animal than the figured big leaf, silver, or rock maples.

Maple holds detail really well throughout the carving process. I've dropped pieces on the concrete floor and been amazed that they were virtually unscathed. It doesn't chip out like cherry, either. It is, however, more tough to carve. Most woodcarvers work in basswood these days, but it's just too soft for me. I like working in it and I occasionally build guitars with it, but it's not as durable as maple or other hardwoods.

Carving through figure in wood can be a pain, too. I get through some of those problems by using a power carver or flexible shaft tool on the problem spots. Another solution is carving so slowly with knives and gouges that you can see when a split is happening, so you back out and go in from the other direction.

Knob-wise, I did try an ebony knob. It was just too stark of a contrast. I settled on the maple knob I turned, because it matched the simplicity of the pickup cover, the "tailpiece", and the edges of the guitar. Sometimes, our eyes need to rest.

I'm still failing golf.

Ha, ha! Paul, if you think I've got a good "slice" in my woodcarving technique, you should see the one I've got when I play golf!

I take it you start with a V gouge. Are you using palm chisels mainly ?

One word: class! That is an exquisite piece of craftsmanship. IMHO one of the best guitars posted on this board (and on many other guitar-related boards, too).

Chris, I prefer a U shape to the V. The V makes too much of a sharp line for me. I like a slightly curved inside corner to the sharp square inside corner. The sharp inside corner becomes a line that you have to be super clean with, whereas a rounded inside corner or line is a bit more ambiguous. It seems cleaner and more forgiving, form-wise. I reserve the sharp inside lines of a V-cut for small details to contrast with the rounded corners. Does that make sense?

Before the gouge-work, I define the lines with a sharp carving knife. That helps to cut the fibers, reducing tear-out, as well as better defining the shapes.

Joe, thanks so much for the high praise. I'm flattered. I've seen some amazing instruments on here. I'm not sure we can judge them all on the same criteria, because they all have different styles or purposes. Mine has its limitations. It's not for everybody. I certainly appreciate YOUR taste, though!

Jeffrey,

I have a detail question. It looks like your strings are captured in wood strip on the back. Is it walnut, and if so is this hard enough? Or is it metal, colored to match the wood?

Again, a real stunner.

Very impressive Jeff, as always!

Steve, there's a brass plate underneath that walnut cover that holds the string ends. I cut the brass plate out with a jeweler's saw to match the semi-circular rout, then drill it for the strings and solder a ground wire to the end nearest the control cavity. I drill a small hole from the string-end cavity to the control cavity for the wire. The walnut cover is drilled through for the string-ends and is simply cosmetic. It's one of those little details I like that takes some time and effort, but it gives the instrument one more custom, handmade feature.

I've attached a pic of the one I did for my Dragonwing to illustrate.

Andreas, thanks! I loved your gargoyle, man, but I didn't get the chance to say so. Though we both carve, our instruments are good examples of individual styles and techniques.

I have seen a few amazing carved instruments lately. Was curious of how you went about making that intricate carving into the wood?

Jordan, I'm really not sure I can give you an answer that will satisfy your question. There's no magic or super secret technique. It literally just amounts to drawing the design then carving the wood away with fairly typical woodcarving tools. It not only takes hours, it takes days and sometimes weeks of work on a single carving. I have years of experience as a professional sculptor and woodcarver that preceeded my building musical instruments.

Further up this thread, I tried to include a couple photos that show some stages in the process, but it's such a slow one that it's difficult to illustrate effectively at times.

Although, wouldn't it be cool to do a time lapse photography thing one of these days? That's a thought.

Stunning!

And a different question, Jeffrey: how do you design your scrollwork?

I always found carving to be relatively easy, but laying out a nicely balanced scroll-and-foliate gives me fits, and I never found anything detailing the proportions or rhythms very well.

I can copy well enough, but that's not very satisfying.

Did I say that guitar is stunning?

And a different question, Jeffrey: how do you design your scrollwork?

Erik... THAT'S the $64,000 question I've been trying to hint at. While good carving does require a feel for the forms and in my case, knowledge and experience with anatomy, the cuts and tool movements are the same simple techniques illustrated in every woodcarving how-to. Its sophistication is a matter of how far the craftsman is willing to refine it. The design aspect may not take the manhours the carving does, but it's extremely important, nonetheless.

In my humble experience, I've never found anything detailing or teaching the proportions or rhythms in botanical ornamentation either. All I can recommend is to study as many historic ornament reference books as you can. I have a good sized library of ornament and historic sculpture books, many of the coffee-table variety. Anything I could get my hands on through the years. When I did a couple sculpture projects in Germany, I even tossed shoes and other clothing in the trash at the Munich airport to compensate for the amount of books I was flying back to the States. That 35-foot tall Santa I sculpted there bought me a nice addition to my library... and some new clothes.

The whole game is almost entirely about observation. The reason most people struggle with drawing or painting or sculpting is because they just don't look hard enough at what they're trying to convey. I'm not sure what that says about the fact that my specialty has been the female form for years. Okay... yes, I DO know what that says about that.:)

Dover Books is a great resource for historic etchings and illustrations. I have a policy of never copying out of those books, because I have this fear that someone will stumble across a design I used and immediately kill my mystique. :) Very few of the ornament designs fit my project, either. I shy away from designs that just look cut and pasted onto my work. I want it to be integrated with the instrument (or whatever), so I draw from scratch for practical purposes.

I applaud anyone who takes a stab at designing something original. Even if it doesn't quite cut the mustard, at least the intellectual effort was made. I preach against copying, because I know how hard the original designer worked. It's no fun to see your personal pride reproduced over and over in the marketplace, making someone a living while you're struggling to pay the bills. Been there. However, most of the designs Dover publishes are in the public domain. While I have to maintain my reputation as a professional and provide original work for my clients who pay for just that, it doesn't mean the use of those public domain illustrations is unethical, especially for folks who are just doing work for their own enjoyment or studies.

For years, I designed and sculpted architectural ornamentation that required me to saturate myself with every scroll or acanthus-leafed object I could find and apply their principles to the patterns I was designing to keep myself fed.

Have I said anything in this rant that is useful to anyone? As I've mentioned in other threads, I draw everyday. Ninety-nine point nine percent of what I draw never sees the light of day, but I work things out that way. We're always telling newbie builders to draw out their plans full-size to work out the measurements and angles. It's the same with any other artistic endeavor.

I've attached an image of a clay frieze I sculpted in 1995 to illustrate how much of my life I've blown... er... "concentrated" on the pursuit of the answer to your question, Erik! I'm still working at it.

Truly interesting work! It reminds me very much of Spanish baroque furniture. The photo looks more delicate, almost a French Rococo by comparison. Interesting to see how your style has developed.

May I ask, what do you normally work on that you have so much carving experience?

May I ask, what do you normally work on that you have so much carving experience?

Hi, Randolph! The simple answer is, "name it." A lot of my carving experience is involved in prototype development for the architectural ornament, gift, and the toy industries. Some folks on this forum are familiar with my toy background and the action figure industry. While 90% of my sculpting during the last 10 years has been with additive processes involving proprietary blends of waxes and clays for toy and gift prototype development, I also work subtractively (carve) using many media besides wood, such as machinable resins, foams, plastics, and some metals, though metals are not remotely my cup of tea. It depends on the gig. It's sometimes faster for me to carve the part(s) directly for the tooling than it is for me to model the clay which then goes to the moldmaker to be cast in resin that then goes to Hong Kong for the tooling.

My specialty has been the human form for quite awhile, so the gigs I booked were mostly people or humanoid characters. In the last couple of years, I've been phasing out the toy prototyping, as I was becoming swamped with the same types of figures over and over. I did so many Battlestar Galactica and Stargate figures that I was about to lose my mind. Now, my concentration is almost completely on designing and executing my guitars.

The clay panel I showed in the pic above was a prototype that was molded and produced in concrete for an architectural ornament company that produces decorative architectural elements, as well as the usual planters and "yard ornaments." Hey, who do you think sculpts that stuff?!

During the 90s, I worked with interior designers and builders to produce unique high-end interiors and exteriors. Some of my big jobs involved designing and producing large amounts of original moldings and architectural elements like columns and caps. I was also doing some faux painting, finishing, and murals at the time. Whatever it took to pay the bills.

The craziest period was during the mid-late 90s when I was filling the gaps in my schedule with exhibition sandsculpture for the Sandtastic Team out of Sarasota, Florida. It was like being a rock star. :) It wore me out. That's what drove me to settle down and concentrate on the smaller prototype work that I could do out of a studio.

I feel a bit self-conscious talking about myself in this way. While I want to answer all questions, I'd like to recognize that there are lots of amazing artists and craftsmen on this forum, each with their own interesting evolutionary tales to tell. Regardless of anyone's experience, each individual piece still has to stand or fall on its own merits. I've made some real crap in my time.

Impressive work history. Way out of my league!

Jeffrey is modest by nature. Some of his 'toy' and 'action figure' work is of the most iconic figures in popular culture.

Totally awesome.

Just wow.... that's all I can say!

Yeah, well, you guys only get to see what kinda worked. The klinkers never leave the studio and I'm seriously running out of room!

Thanks!

Well, I have been a big Jeffrey Jones fan forever. If you check out his website you can see that his life as a professional sculptor spans several decades and mediums.

I have heard people say "well, I'm not big on carved guitars." But this sort of sculpting is so masterfully integrated into the over all design that it just seems like part of the guitar.

Amazing work. The fret board end and logo are incredible details.

Now build a fretless one!

You must have the most beautiful firewood on the planet. ;o)

Have I said anything in this rant that is useful to anyone?

Absolutely! If I was 30 years younger I'd happily sweep floors to get the opportunity to learn from an obvious master.

My father left me with a blessing and a curse, many years ago. So simple, and yet so deeply depressing.

What he said was "if you can draw it, you can make it."

I, too, draw nearly every day, but somehow never got the right set of skills to make it work. But then I never took any classes, either, so I only have myself to blame.

Anyway, I ramble.

I'm a Woodwright's Shop fan. A recent episode, #336 features carver Mack Headley, of Historic Williamsburg, who references a few classical works on the subject of ornamentation and mentions a few rules in passing, both on drawing and carving. For instance, he uses a gouge with a curved edge to walk a curve, so that the leading edge is guided by the heel. He rocks the chisel through the curve, changing gouges as the volute opens up, both for outlining and removing stock. That's another master I'd sweep floors for, if my hands were still working.

I guess I'm going to be spending some time at a good bookstore if I can still find one. Batty Langley was mentioned specifically with a drawing showing details for developing scrolls... but he was uncertain about which Langley and I don't have the funds to buy blind. I know Headley has books out, and they're on my list, too.

Again, I'd like to say how grateful I am that you've shared your Nocturne in iO with us.

Marcus! I can't speak to the beautiful part, but I do have the most labor intensive firewood around. If man hours were BTUs, I could heat my house and shop for half a dozen winters.

Erik, thanks for the kind words and the info. Langley's work was very formal. I've never run across the drawing you mentioned. Mostly just plates from Langley's books, illustrating decorative architectural elements. See: http://www.lombardmaps.com/cat/rosettes/ornament.htm for what I mean.

I like to be fairly informal, which is why I don't really have any rules to pass along. The type of curves I most often employ are almost always logarithmic spirals. Pursuit curves. I don't like circles much, although it's necessary to use them at times. I can't find a pursuit-curved forstner bit in this universe, but I can dream. (Google logarithmic spirals, pursuit curves, or the trawler problem. It's cool.)

Jakob Bernoulli studied the logarithmic spiral and had engraved on his tombstone the words that mean "I shall arise the same, though changed."

The edges of most of my typical guitars are usually parabolic (sine curves) or logarithmic in form, rather than simply rounded with a perfect semi-circular round-over bit. I use the bits to remove stock, but I always come back in and change the curves using rasps, kutzalls, or whatever. Then, of course, comes more rasping and filing and sanding, hence, part of the labor intensity mentioned earlier to Marcus. My edges are real organic, not unlike the lines I choose for my favorite body shapes. I love rasps and files. Really. I work to the hand. I feel my work constantly with my hands. That matters as much to me as how it looks with my eyes. That's another reason I very rarely build instruments with square edges. It doesn't feel like I think an object so intimate with the human body as a musical instrument should feel. Sung to the melody of a popular Stone's tune: "I see a square edge and I want to shave it dow-own." You say D'Angelico, I say Sakashta.

I design my patterns or scrolls just by starting to draw spirals and curves. They start to form themselves. It becomes a puzzle of sorts, to mix up and spread the varying sized curves around in a pattern that pleases me and that suits the "cartouche" I'm trying to define. There's no one best solution. There are many good solutions. I have difficulty explaining my design process, because it's almost entirely intuitive at this point in my experience. I don't use a specific curve because it's mathematically correct or some rule says that a 2/3 ratio would be better than 4/5. Yawn. I use it because I just plain thought it should look that way. For every rule, I can show you dozens of instances where the rule was broken... exquisitely.

I don't even own a French curve of any kind. I draw all my curves (besides perfect circles) completely freehand. With experience, you can see clearly when you're deviating from the path that is best to pursue the prey, also frequently on the move.

I've been shown designs by people who are very big into sacred geometry and mathematical rules of design. Sure, the object has a specific proportion, but fails to be interesting or provocative. It's sometimes as close to the actual mathematical formula for invisibility as anyone's come up with. Know what I mean? I'm not saying to break the rules, but bending them a little is where the real magic happens. It's kinda why most of Langley's work will look very unimaginative to a lot of people. Because it kind of was. That's not a dig against Langley or his ilk. There are those that hold that beauty is made by specific proportions. I see beauty in lots of different ways, depending on what is trying to be communicated.

Again, am I saying anything that anybody's getting anything out of? I read what I'm writing and all I can say is "yikes."

The best advice I can give for designing uses an analogy that we're all real familiar with here.

Using whatever sources you can find, get exposed to the type of work you're interested in. Study the riffs. Play the riffs. Keep studying and playing until you begin to be able to improvise with your own voice.

That's it.

Addendum: I never much liked playing the riffs the way I heard them, so to speak, because I wanted a voice of my own from the very beginning. That may have been the primary factor that pushed me forward. Or sideways.

Thanks for the discourse. I am still impressed with your work, even though you explained how easy it is to do.

I am going to file this discussion. I have learned a great deal from it, although my skills are far, far from being up to applying any of what I have learned. The thing is, any addition to my fund of knowledge about design and technique is of great value to me, even if it is a form that I am unlikely to ever use as presented. I have found a couple of ideas and some inspiration that I will use in an entirely unrelated way, however, and that is part of the value of this type of discussion.

My personal thanks to Jeffrey and to all who have added to this along the way. You have taught me, and I appreciate it.

I've got to pick my jaw off the floor ;) Very nice!

Jeffrey I understand what you are saying, but not in the same relm nor level of talent. I build custom rifle stocks and pistol grips, and there are times they just feel right. There are times they don't.

One of my goals has been to build a Les Paul with exhibition grade curly hard maple and then cover the complete top with tight, small scroll. I don't even know what it is called, but rather than incising like yours, all the carving will be raised. I had this idea while looking at some antique muzzle loader rifles which were more art than firearm!

My problem of course is talent to draw the scrolls. I use cnc (I know, don't leave yet) and have been trying to find the right size and shape of scroll to begin modifying to make this covering. So far every attempt has been like you described above.....rigid...static rather than flowing. After seeing your guitar, and reading your posts, I know to get what I want, I am going to have to draw by hand, and if I want to do this with cnc spend a lot of time programming.

Thank you for your beautiful work, and your insight.

Mike

I work in relative isolation these days and miss having discussions like this, Tim. When I left the McFarlane Toys studio in NJ over 4 years ago to build a home and freelance studio back in my Missouri home town, I didn't realize how cut off I'd really be after spending 12-16 hours a day working around other commercial sculptors and artists with - as you can imagine - lots to talk about. Even the sandsculpting gigs were like big sculpture parties with my comrades in arms. I'd like to say thanks for the opportunity to discuss my work or the work you folks are doing. I'm pleased that some of you are getting something meaningful out of this discourse. I want nothing better than to be able to offer you a fraction of what I've learned from everyone who frequents the MIMF. Everyone.

Steve, it probably does sound like I think the techniques are a cake walk and should be for anyone, but I struggle daily to be a better artist and craftsman. After years and years of that, the obsession is more than second nature, it IS my nature, so I may tend to talk about what I do as if it's nothing much. To those early on in their experience, their efforts are certainly not "nothing" and I don't want to minimize the struggle anyone else is going through. Extraordinary work requires an extraordinary amount of work. I get up every morning and get after it until 3 or 4 the next morning. A professional musician may sound or even talk as if his or her playing is the easiest thing in the world, but years of dedication, practice routines, and rehearsals are usually always discounted by the public.

Mike Turner, that sounds like a fantastic project. Keep in mind that "raised carving" is as incised as mine. Mine looks "incised" merely because it's framed in. Were I to remove the outside frame, my scrolls would be "raised."

The best design resource for you and others is to consult Dover Publishing. They have a VAST library of reference books on historic ornamention. There are soooo many styles of scrolls and ornament. Once you see how much there is, how many variations, it'll be absolutely necessary for you to decide which style most suits your project in your mind's eye.

There'll be cartouches or swaths or even just certain specific elements that you can adapt and combine for your own design. As I mentioned earlier, it's a lot like learning to play solo guitar. You hear licks and passages that you want to learn and employ in your playing, then you're eventually able to speak with a voice of your own. All the best to you! It sounds beautiful and I hope you show it off. Make it happen.

For the Nocturne, I improvised the whole thing based upon other scrolls and patterns I'd studied over the years. While the overall pattern is technically "original", I'll never have enough hubris to say that the style is.

I'll talk about CNC. I've got no problem with it. It's a tool. But, it can't really do what I'm doing. From soup to nuts, I'm faster, too. That's one reason lots of traditional commercial sculptors still get hired by the movie studios who use CGI. Time is money. Experienced sculptors can model in clay or make changes faster than most CGI guys can model digitally, so clay maquettes are frequently used to scan the initial characters for further development as CGI. I was contacted about some gigs just a month ago. Things are changing, I suppose, but if you ever saw just how rough the average wax output from a 3-D printer of a portrait head for an action figure was before being detailed out of necessity by an experienced sculptor's hand, you'd understand what I mean.

CNC carving isn't as clean as I'd like it to be, either. For my type of organic work, I'd have to spend a lot of time cleaning up and shaping what the CNC couldn't. I think what you're planning, Mike, is primarily bi-level, right? The raised scrollwork and the background, with square edges and inside corners, kinda like the laser engraving thing? My thing is more multi-dimensional. Subtley so. That's not to say that yours won't be beautiful. I can see it in my head.

CNC certainly has its applications and strengths. I'm not really interested in producing a hundred copies of one of my intensely carved designs, though. Maybe someday I'll put out a production thing or two, but I'd have it produced, because I'd lose my mind making more than 2. A hundred of them certainly wouldn't have the value that my one-offs have either, nor should they.

As usual, I'm full of analogies. I think of my work as a live performance. In the music industry today, we've got the technology to sequence a musical passage using sampling and all sorts of modules or modelling for the sound sources. We can now play a complete complex piece simply by sequencing it and pushing the play button. And don't say that it couldn't possibly sound like a guitar, because I've heard it done. So, why do guitarists bother to play the guitar when they could easily just program their performance? Would a live audience appreciate a guitarist's solo if he or she walked out on stage, punched a button, then stood there with an awkward grin? Would they pay $50 a head to see it? I'm not trying to be snide or even sarcastic. I'm just posing some thoughts about our values and philosophies toward performance. I don't want a convolluted discussion about Milli Vanilli. :)

I guide the tools with my own hands, because that's the point for me. I'm not applying any judgement toward anyone choosing to work with CNCs. They're tools. I just wanted to make my own rationale clear. I don't think of myself as "old school" anymore than someone like Satriani does.

Go for it, Mike.

Bring on the micrometers. :)

Hi Jeffrey,

I only mentioned the incised to bring attention to the fact I didn't know what to call it! I actually own one of the Dover books on scrolls, but at the moment can't find it. Too many times moving.

"CNC carving isn't as clean as I'd like it to be, either. For my type of organic work, I'd have to spend a lot of time cleaning up and shaping what the CNC couldn't. I think what you're planning, Mike, is primarily bi-level, right? The raised scrollwork and the background, with square edges and inside corners, kinda like the laser engraving thing? My thing is more multi-dimensional. Subtley so. That's not to say that yours won't be beautiful. I can see it in my head."

I thought I had better copy and paste this one in so I could better comment. While it is true that using a small ballnose does not give that clean chisel cut, it does make things a lot easier, and for me, much faster to use the chisels and gouges to dress up with. Part of this plan is to see just how close to hand cut I can come with the cnc. To do this will obviously take much more time than what you would need to carve the top, but once that program gets done, the machine doesn't get tired. The answer to your question about being bi level carving would be no. I am talking full 3d carving with veining placed in to the degree that you can see the vein begin as a fade into the full depth for the vein and then fade back out quickly for the exit. In addition the scrolls would have the same look and feel as what you did, just on a smaller basis. The beautiful part of having the frame around the carving such as yours, is you can texture via stippling. With the frame removed you have to use scrapers to smooth all the machined surfaces so they will be smooth.

The goal of getting close to hand cut will require the application of several different type machining strategies, and a bit selection that is going to hurt! Please don't get me wrong. In no way do I think this will ever replace hand cut work, nor would I want it to. On the other hand, it might open up a whole new look to solid body guitars that has never been available to the masses. I am not necessarily looking to do that. My goal is to do this for me to learn and have fun doing it. If rewards come from it, that is just fine too!

Oh yes Jeffrey, I had to edit this so I could add, that I personally love American scroll!

Mike

Bring on the micrometers. :)

I bet detail work like that costs an arm and a leg.

That guitar is pretty cool, but the sculpture work on your home page is even cooler.

You are a great inspiring source Jeffrey, I have looked your web page frequently since I have been here at the MIMF, and seen your sculpture work. I think it's amazing.!

and of course your style and taste for musical instruments..

I like a lot the "Phoebus 4-string Bass", "Kronos fretless", "Special Kay fretless" (the inlayed ebony lines, nice.!), and of course "Nocturne for iO"....

Again.. It's inspiring.!

Mike: A-ha! That project sounds incredible. Race ya. It'll be like a John Henry kinda thing. :) I understand what you're doing and can't wait to see it. Programming or modelling that directly in your computer is certainly a daunting task and not one I would wish to undertake, because, as I implied, carving directly seems somewhat more efficient to me. Regardless of the fact that CNC never gets tired, I think of the process in terms of economy of motion, something I learned from Japanese potters. Each extra step, set-up, and format change makes the chain of energy just a little less efficient. Part of what I mean relates to the fact that the human brain and body IS a CNC.

If this were a commercial gig, to save time and money, a sculptor would typically be booked to sculpt it in clay or wax, as detailed and clean as possible, then, a mold would be made and a resin cast pulled. The cast would be even more detailed, cleaned up and scanned in using the digital stylus-type of scanner or pantograph. Then, once "carved" by the tireless CNC, it would still have to be cleaned up. By hand. As labor-intensive as it sounds, I'd be interested in comparing the labor I know this takes with the time you require in the end to draw the design and model it in your computer to the degree you describe.

Do keep me posted about the progress of your project. I'm sincerely interested in your undertaking and your ongoing results. Feel free to contact me in person through my site. One of my close friends and commercial sculpting peers is currently building a CNC machine to suit his prototyping needs and inlaying aspirations.

Clint: Ba-dump-bump. He's here everynight, folks! Try the veal! :)

Ellie: Thanks! I hear what yer sayin'. I'm just finishing up a new guitar I'll be posting to my site sometime this week that's not as intensely carved as the Nocturne, but it's a modest segue into some cool content. The Skull and Roses guitar is being assembled right now, as well. I built a whole new neck for that one instead of the one I had. It's kinda cool. As I get those fully completed, I'm working as we speak on guitars that are way more typical of my preferred sculptural content and portfolio. Clint - bless him - has seen 2 of the finished drawings that I'm currently engaged in carving to feature in a couple shows I'll be exhibiting at this year. A micro-culture of nanobot assassins I introduced into his system when we had lunch in Nashville will chew his larynx to shreds if he mentions them, but I'll give you two words: chicks and robots.

I've actually taken some flack for my earlier guitars that were kinda "safe" or not much different from lots of others out there. The people who came clean with me were friends, peers, product managers, art directors, guitar dealers. Every one of them said the exact same thing, almost word for word: "your guitars don't look anything like guitars I'd expect Jeffrey Jones would produce." Okay, okay. I get the message. :)

Jairo: Can I call you Jairo? You've got more names than me. :) Thanks for relating your favorites to me. I really, really appreciate the feedback from someone with your tastes. Your logo alone from your website is delicious enough to eat. That's award-winning design work by itself. You do wonderful work, mi amigo.

I'm re-thinking my "economy of motion" argument regarding CNC versus a hands-on approach. You can't get much more economical in terms of human motion than designing large objects in a virtual space with a simple click of a button or flick of a wrist.

It perhaps only comes down to personal preference. I'm a chronically tactile guy. Always have been. I like to get my hands in the wet work, the visceral, dirty, sensual stuff.

People have always had a misunderstanding about the old masters. They were indeed, master artists, but they didn't produce every single marble statue by themselves (sometimes, if at all). It's never addressed in public and perhaps just assumed that they carved all their own marble statues and polished the surface of each one themselves with progressively smaller and smaller grits, but how much time would that have taken from the artist's schedule or productivity?

We sometimes mock Warhol for his Factory, but historically, such an arrangement was common. Rather than wax on about the sculpture houses of old, I'll mention that there are numbers of commercial sculpture houses right now all over the world that are the means by which fine artists of all levels have their clay maquettes turned into more permanent works on a grander scale. Whether stone carvers convert the artist's clay or drawing into a monument or a CNC machine does it, the result is pretty much the same, right? It's a tool.

I just wanted to make sure I wasn't using some fallacial argument against (or for) computer-aided production.

I use tools to do what I do, I rarely stop to think about how valid my art or craft or whatever the hell you call what we do is because of them.

CNC machines,routers,tablesaws,chisels or rattle cans of spray glitter, even the instruments I love to play making music, all those things need ideas and energy behind them to work. I'll use whatever gets the job done.

Stradivarius, Mozart, DaVinci, I have no doubt that if those guys were around working today, they'd feel a lot like I do when it comes to making ideas into reality.

Thanks Jeff, I left a window open with your site on it and my daughter saw it.....Now she wants a carved electric. Sheeesh.

Nocturne for iO... can I get that in leather?

I've always thought this guitar looked like tooled leather, Clay. My brother is quite a leather craftsman, but I've been procrastinating designing a strap that he'll tool for me to match the guitar. After staring at something for such a darned long time, I'd kinda like to look at something else!

Mike Dotson, glad I could help out. :)

Ellie, I'm with you. I wanted to make sure that I didn't sound like I was "preaching" or moralizing about the ethics of one production method or the other. I'm real self-conscious about falling into that trap. Being an artist, I hear it all the time. One good thing about having attached myself to the commercial art camp rather than "fine" art is that I'm not hobbled by my own arguments about what is "valid" and what is not.

I was going into art school when computer graphics were first coming into being. Consequently, for decades, all I've heard is one curmudgeony argument after the next about how computer art will destroy the "real" artist jobs. The fact that we're more surrounded by intensely-designed and detailed graphics than ever before says all I need to know. Okay, so comic book artists and game designers don't have clue-one about human anatomy, at least their stuff is pretty. :)

I mentioned one of my close friends who is a classically trained sculptor for the US Mint. She's having to learn to "sculpt" digitally. If it works, it works. If not, the people who employ the tools will leave it laying in the tool drawer and pick up what does work.

I've taken heat, believe it or not, for just incorporating power tools into my carving quiver.

My main issues with computer art back in the early eighties was that while these tools made it easier to produce good work, they're also a means for producing a lot of absolute garbage, quickly. As more and more artists become adept at working with them, the cream will rise to the top, again, and, once again, design will be the issue. That's exactly why I emphasize design so much.

I've taken heat, believe it or not, for just incorporating power tools into my carving quiver.

GASP! You mean you don't hand-work everything with tools you forged yourself out of ore you mined yourself by hand, tempering them over a fire you started by rubbing two sticks together, that you cut off a tree you planted yourself?!?!? Sir, I am disillusioned.

Michael Mandaville would be.

http://instantrimshot.com/

I hear you loud and clear about the time thing, Jeffrey.

My wife and I are both artists and to pay the bills we own a sign shop. She is currently doing a lot of stuff she prodices with potters. There is a lot (a LOT) more time involved in the planning and computer work end alone than if she'd just painted the pieces. But a large part of the point of the pieces is the elevation of a patently commercial medium.

Even in our sign production work I'll redraw by hand and scann client supplied graphics rather than go through all the digital clean up on bad jpegs or bussiness card. I'm constantly amazed, people will come in with a bussiness card and want 1/2" logo from that 8' tall, and they just never seem to understand the art charges.

When time=$$$ there will always be room for hand work.

When time=$$$ there will always be room for hand work.

Agreed. Time is a huge issue. So is cost. And digital work isn't necessarily the advantage in those arenas people think it is.

In signwork, it's amazing how clean and effective the flourish of one handheld Xacto blade can be, by comparison to hours of digital cleanup work in Photoshop. That's not to say, as in the scenarios you describe, Johnathan, that you sometimes don't have to do the Photoshop work in order to get the digital files into your system, but people need to understand that your labor is intense and isn't free, no matter what they perceive about computer-aided production.

In college, I worked part-time for a sign shop operated by a local art instructor. That was "back in the day." We didn't do anything digitally. We pinstriped trucks with a dagger brush and quill. Them were the days.

Let me talk more about time and cost using toy design. In the toy industry, only a handful of companies can afford a half-million or million dollar 3-D printer and the scanning hardware that accompanies it. They're the source for quite a number of digital output gigs. A single portrait job that consists of outputting several sizes of the same head - each 1-2% smaller or larger than the others - will cost the production/design studio contracting them to do this $1,000 to $10,000 for a couple one-inch tall portrait heads, price and timescale depending on the resolution of the print-out. Companies that use these outputs as the basis for their portrait heads on action figures usually get a lower rez print, then book a sculptor to clean them up, finish the portrait, and sculpt the hair. Digital scanners can't scan hair worth a darn. Everyone gets printed with bad bedhead.

Okay, so you've dropped $1-2,000 (or more) on a slug of a portrait head, waited for it to be sent to your office, then you send it on to the sculptor, whom you'll pay $500-1,000 for finishing. There's a lot of nervous waiting for FedEx in there. And the most outrageous shipping prices you can ever imagine. A couple hundred for overnighting a package that weighs less than a pound, 3 or 4 times.

A decent portrait sculptor gets $500-1,500 for sculpting a head from scratch and can do it in a simple work week, usually including a revision or two after notes from the client. One shipping cost.

Granted, decent from-scratch portrait guys are few and far between. I was average. Portraiture was not my favorite bag and often, I'd pass the head over to a peer to give a quick once-over just to make sure the likeness was there, then I'd finish it back up. Your eyes get used to looking at a head a certain way and you need fresh eyes sometimes. My secret weapon was having a couple different sets of experienced eyes in my cabal to exploit.

The good thing about the digital outputs was that the basic structure for the likeness was there, at the right size, which solved a lot of issues when clients threw a flag on the likeness approvals. "But, it's a scan from the character." Used that one often to get the approval pushed on through. Of course, that digital thing costs a company money and time in other phases of the production. A scratch sculptor roughs out a portrait to the stage that it comes from the printer in a couple of hours, not days.

I don't know how exactly the digital shops develop their prices, but some of it certainly has to do with paying for the wicked costs of their equipment, which is obsolete before it's paid for, I'm sure.

By contrast, opposable thumbs are still an industry standard, after all these years. :)

About the tools used in the luthier workshop.. I have little experience as a luthier, I consider myself a beginner, but as a Designer, I consider that feeling the material and knowing how to apply it in your needs is the best way to know how to work with it.

What I mean is, if you have plastic.. maybe you will have to use a lot of CNC, and all that stuff.. to make a serial production of some kind of product to a reasonable price (ex. kitchen bowls)... A different approach or experimentation with materials, like making a couch in metal, like Ron Arad did, sound really weird, when I heard that, i thought it could be hard and uncomfortable to sit on it, but it is not. And the best way to produce it, is not using CNC, those couches are hand made...

This is why I started making my first bass, and now I made my instruments. To produce them by hand, using only the necessary and minimum power tools needed for the job. I think, when a luthier or luthiers work with its own hands, this "feeling" is transmitted to his work.

Maybe I'm crazy but, when you go to the music store, and you want to buy a bass or guitar.. you go there, select it .. play it.. and if you like it you buy it... thats it...

But when you go to a luthier and ask him to build an instrument for you.. i think is different. It's a person who is working to give you the best he can, to build "your instrument", the one you always was looking for... I think this is like magic or something..!

I have nothing against CNC production, i like it a lot. I have use it for my some of my product designs, but I like to build instruments with my hands.

Jeffrey: thanks for your kind words.!! I really appreciate that you like my work, my amigo. :)

Excellent work Jeffrey.

I'm curious about the texture at the bottom (flat) section between the scrolls. Was that a ball cutter? I've seen pictures of different "stamps" for backgrounds as well I've been a little curious about them.

I've carved a couple guitars, but I'm a novice carver compared to you.

"I'm not really interested in producing a hundred copies of one of my intensely carved designs, though. Maybe someday I'll put out a production thing or two, but I'd have it produced, because I'd lose my mind making more than 2. A hundred of them certainly wouldn't have the value that my one-offs have either, nor should they."

I've been considering building a duplicator to rough out a guitar if I wanted to make more than one. People scream bloody murder at the thought- and dont get the idea that it will save maybe half the time... and time is money. I could sell the copy for little over 1/2 the price of an origional hand carve. I would still have many hours in the detail work- but only several hours running a duplicator to rough it out... and no time wasted trying to program a CNC. The same people who complain about the idea of using a duplicator still think the cost of a duplicated guitar is too high, and want the handmade for less than that! (though I never seriously tried to sell one yet)

Mike T.

The scrolls on a rifle stock sounds cool. I still need one of your stocks for my 10/22 project.

Well, Jeffrey hit the nail on the head with his "cost of equipment" statement. For sculpture like Jeffrey does, there is digital equipment available that can go from master to carving in a matter of minutes. In addition it can scan a human head, with such minute detail that individual hairs could be carved should the time be allowed for it. The problem is of course the cost of the scanner, the software to take than scan from a point cloud to a digital image and then the software to take that image to gcode for the machine, and that is before you ever get to the cost of the machine.

The difficulty for cnc, is the originality problem. To get something as original as what Jeffrey has produce here would take longer to produce on cnc because you still have to have an original or spend an enormous amount of time hand building the model.

My desire in doing this is because it is something I want to do. I would probably never produce but one, but that one would be mine!

jairo I understand the statement about the hands touching the work, but trust me when I tell you this, that they will be in contact with a cnc produced part quite a bit. When I design a rifle stock, I do it with feel. I keep making changes until it feels right. The problem is, that I may need to make 100-500 of those and all of them need to feel right. With cnc I can do that, and do it efficiently. My thoughts about how cnc applies to guitar design and production is based on the fact there are so many tried and true designs already out there that have that hand tested feel. A Les Paul just feels good in my hands, though I can play for ..... well you get the idea. If I want a Les Paul I can use the tools I have to build one. In my case those tools happen to be cnc.

Mike

People have always had a misunderstanding about the old masters. They were indeed, master artists, but they didn't produce every single marble statue by themselves (sometimes, if at all).

What he said. I was fortunate enough to hang out with some modern masters when I was a kid; most notably Ansel Adams, and what Jeffrey says is still true. Especially, I believe, when recognition and demand rise to the point where output becomes important.

An Adams example "Moonrise, Hernandez": that was one image that required an immense amount of time to print, due to the circumstances it was shot under. His Zone System would suggest multiple exposures, but there was only time for one, and the negative was so thin you could read through it most places. An ideal negative can be printed without manipulation, but this one takes some dozen steps and a couple of hours of careful dodging and burning. For an old dude with serious arthritis and lots of other things to do, handing that off to an assistant was a necessity.

And the end result? Alan Ross's prints of it are better than Ansel's.

Of course that's not -always- true. I suspect that economics had a lot to do with the production of Art through the ages; some managed to support themselves working solo, while others, through sheer scale or tradition, supported huge shops employing dozens of workers. Was one more Artist than the other? I think not, but what do I know... I'm just a perennial apprentice who gave up on the capital A arts a long time ago. I'm just not that good at it.

My dad had two signs hanging in his studio (he was a commercial photographer). One said, in a truly ghastly hand "Concept is mor important than tecnik." The other, in letters laid by smoke trailing an airplane "Technique is more important than concept."

I suspect the thing that makes Masters like Jeffrey and Ansel is that both concept and technique must be equals. Maybe?

Julian: The texture in the background was made using a ball cutter of sorts. I use a variety of burrs and cutters. That one was, IRC, a cylindrical burr with a round end about 1/16" in diameter. On vast expanses of background, I like a texture, not just to cover up a possible uneven surface, because I can clean up a surface as well as anyone, but the random texture gives a certain warmth and handworked quality. I think it speaks more to the craftsman's involvement, dedication, and patience.

A duplicator, for me, is in much the same boat as the CNC. I'd like to use one sometime just to explore the possibilities.

Mike: I'm all about doing something for the sake of doing it or pushing limits. Go for it, man. That's a place where growth occurs. And use it to its best advantage. Play to its (cnc's) strengths. I believe that if you're going to do something with tools or skills few other people have access to, then use those skills or tools to produce something that is just as rare.

Let me put it another way. Lots of folks with just a few tools at their disposal ask how to make copies of specific guitars - which are invariably factory guitars - with those few tools. If it were me and I had only a few tools, I'd use them to their own best advantage to create something the factory tools couldn't. As workshops go, I actually have a fairly small arsenal of tools and haven't yet reached the limits of what what I can do with just those if I had more experience.

We (society) have high expectations and assumptions about CNC. Some good, some bad or misguided. A large part of the general public is underwhelmed by CNC, because they just assume that's the way everything is made these days. You've got your Wii and your XBox and your GuitarHero... why bother with real physical abilities or skills when you've got computers that can do all that for us? I'm being rhetorical there, btw. Society, for the most part, is underwhelmed about what I do, too. Yawn. Woodcarving. Uh... hmm. How quaint. "Everyone needs a hobby, I guess."

Back in the day, portrait painting was one of the highest art forms. Then photography came along to take over that task and the artist was free to explore other avenues of expression. Without the camera, I doubt modern art would have come along. I'd bet good money that 19th century painters were freaking out about photography more than 21st century craftsmen are freaking out about CNC.

Think about the craftsman who first used bronze tools after the age of stone tools. I imagine he was still trying to copy what the stone tool craftsmen were making until he finally realized he could push beyond it.

Knock our socks off.

And speaking of concept, Erik, here's a brief window into my drawing parlor as both an illustration of my design methods and a reward for those who've made it this far in the thread. It's a much needed visual break. I'll address the issue of concept and technique more shortly.

As you can see in this early concept drawing above, I develop the scrolls from the ground up. I start with the shape of the canvas or guitar within which I'll work and define the space I want to embellish. From there, it's all free flowing gesture drawing to arrive at an interesting pattern that might compliment the spaces or forms. There's no single solution. (I did this drawing in a one-to-one scale, btw, though it's not necessary.) I photograph my drawings frequently in progress so I can backtrack in case I screw up badly or erase something that should have been. The digital camera is my undo factor. It also allows me to take a break and flip the drawing so I can see it in a new way.

I begin breaking up the big arcs into smaller arcs. You can see that I've already fleshed out one section to establish the general style and feel I want to continue.

I just keep going this way until I've got what I want. I eat up a lot of erasers. Oftentimes, I start all over again, because I just couldn't get it to go where I wanted it to go. A fresh page gives me the opportunity to take some different pathways.

Like I said earlier on, it's like putting together a puzzle.

Too often, we tighten up way too much when we're drawing. Go loose. Let it happen. You're in control, but there's no need to bind and gag it.

Does some of this help anybody?

I suspect the thing that makes Masters like Jeffrey and Ansel is that both concept and technique must be equals. Maybe?

Erik, I wanted to get to this, because it's an interesting topic.

First, let me say that I don't remotely think of myself as a master, let alone one lumped with a great like Ansel Adams. Thanks so much for the compliment, but know that I was 10 years into my professional art career before I even felt worthy of calling myself an artist. Someday, maybe I'll feel like a master, but for now, I'm a humble student of my craft.

Concept and technique. Yeah, I suppose they are equals to me. They aren't to every artist and that's okay. I was REALLY conceptual early on in my art punk days, but for me, I found it to be shallow, pretentious, and unrewarding without the skills to express ALL of my concepts, not just the ones that were easy or happened by themselves. For whatever reason, most of my art instructors in college were all about expression and fairly dismissive of skill development, which they saw as trite. Well into my junior year, we began to tangle. They believed that skill development was the beginning of the end for expression. I saw for myself the empty logic of that philosophy.

I honestly credit my affinity since junior high for jazz and progressive music (King Crimson's Discipline album changed my life) for my salvation, if we want to term it that. The most expressive music in my book was played by cats with monster chops. That was the philosophy for me. I can't imagine a professional violinist purposely avoiding skill development so as to maintain his expressive freshness, yet, art students are passive-aggressively forced into that bizarre notion semester after semester.

I took all of art academia I could stand by the final semester of my senior year and dropped out as the means to flip the bird, so to speak, at The Man, whom ironically, thought he was Not The Man. Up to then, I'd been filling a sketchbook a month for years with concepts and ideas. Other students had to be coaxed by The Man to fill a couple pages a semester.

At that point, I just needed to get on with it and never looked back, never regretted being within a semester of a degree. Since then, I've made sure my portfolio was such that no one ever asked me if I even had a degree. Only once, when I applied for a job teaching college ceramics and sculpture was I asked if I had a degree. I still got the job. That's how devoid of "the real" art academia had become.

What the heck were we talking about? I blacked out there for a second when I started preaching. :)

Concept comes easy to dreamers. I like that, though it's distracting. By constantly working on my technique, perhaps I'm attempting to validate my dreaming by turning it into something tangible that's as honest and true to my vision as I can make it at this point in my evolution. It's never quite there, but I'll keep trying.

Well, Doctor, I see my hour is up. :)

Damn Jeffrey, some times it's like I'm looking into an alternate reality where my words, thoughts, and experiences are coming from someone else entirely. Are you siphoning my brain waves mister?

A big struggle of mine in Art School was being to concise in my artist statements and wanting the piece to convey the intent. I had a blow up with my comity about that very thing. If I wished to express the intent in words I'd have been an English major. To me a 4 page diatribe about the "deeper meaning" of a piece makes the piece it's self secondary if not unnecessary all together.

Now, not being a student I have that same discussion with those very professors with completely diametric results. They tend to be interested, in the exchange and understand my position. Now, I have become the revolutionary our little local group of artists for being for pushing the merits of craftsmanship. I site Picasso's cubism. Yes it is primitive and I'm sure your kid can draw better than that, but only through the insight of his years of classical art training was he able to deconstruct the form so totally. His tiny ink scribble of Don Quixote effectively represents the subject. It is his skill and training that allowed him to explore the deeper concept of conveying the most information by means of the least information.

I've gone all over word usey .

I agree with Johnathan, and appreciate your comments.

I spent all of my time in the science classes in college, but wished I had time for the art classes.

I wish I'd had the foresight then to spend a little more energy on science, it would have saved me a lot of time later.

Does some of this help anybody?

You betcha! Thanks for sharing the conceptualizing part; I know it helps me, selfish son of a seacook that I am. :)

Jeffery, IMO you're as much a Master as Ansel was. Whether or not I have the cred to offer that I'll leave up to others... but I will tell a tiny story about him which may illustrate something. I've gotten flack for what I'm about to say many times, because it isn't what people expect.

He wasn't a Master of photography. He did one thing and he did it very well, but his work with the camera and the process of photography was a pale reflection of what he truly loved, the piano. (Not that he didn't master the process of photography! But for him that was largely patience and chemistry...)

Listening to Ansel play was one of the experiences that turned me to music and away from art. He made good images, no doubt about that, but unlike many musicians among those I've listened to, he put the G*d back into the compositions he played.

He was classically trained, but arthritis hit him hard and early; the camera was a distraction that allowed those gnarled paws an outlet for that inspiration that makes the difference between mechanical reproduction of a composer's record of a vision and turns it into something more, something palpably different and so much more "real".

He allowed me to -see- "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" viscerally. It was no longer just a lovely collection of notes, but something living and breathing; inspired in the spiritual sense of a soul blown in.

The most concrete example I have of the difference; Segovia and Montoya. We had recordings from both when I was trying to learn the guitar, and I listened obsessively, especially where both played the same songs. Segovia hit all the notes at precisely the right time, with incredible precision. Montoya was loose with the written note, pausing a little longer -here- and holding a note a little longer -there-.

It's in that sense that Ansel's images frequently fall short; by comparison to what I had the privilege to witness behind the scenes and the conviction that there was more that fate and necessity had stolen from us. On the other hand, there have been great musicians ever since man first put stick to log, and photography needed a messiah there and then, so I shouldn't complain too much.

"Nocturne in Io" has that transcendent quality, Jeffery. It is more than the sum of its parts, even without its voice.

I've been lurking on this board for a long time, and I never post but- that guitar is simply amazing. It is wonderful to see an instrument that is done with such loving care. Obviously the work involved transcends the economics of guitar making; the loving care devoted to that instrument goes beyond the boundaries of price.

Since nobody else has asked yet- how does it sound? :)

Welcome out of the closet, Aaron!

Jeffery, that last drawing is amazingly revealing. It makes me feel almost like I could do this.

I don't really have anything to add, but I *am* enjoying the discourse.

Continue, please.

I'm trying to cover everybody's comments or at least answer every question that's asked, but if I miss something, know that I value everyone's comment. I was going to post another guitar as soon as this thread died, but it's still going strong, probably because I'm a bit verbose after being isolated so much. I'll post the newer one later on.

Johnathan: Over the years I've found there are lots of people who have our same experiences with art departments. I've heard some crazy stories and I've certainly got a bunch to tell, though I'll not get into much of that. In the commercial sculpting world, there are people with all kinds of experiences, some from classic art schools and some who were comic book geeks, the likes of which you can only imagine. Some have degrees in completely different fields.

I guest lecture at colleges and high schools, but not as often as I used to. I think I put some teachers off, because I don't preach the formal education dogma. I think education is important, but for some reason, most art departments don't remotely help their art students with their careers the way other departments do. These students are going to college to develop a career and they're spending good money to do so. I'm ashamed that most of the instructors don't have a single clue about making a living in the arts outside of teaching, so I try to provide some reality. It's easy to get the students' attention when your slide show is crammed with action figures. :)

Steve: My high school didn't have much of an art program, but we did have an exemplary band program and an extremely solid math and science curriculum available. The number of doctors and engineers that were in my high school graduating class turned out unusually high. I had every math and science course offered right up through the honors courses. Physics, chem, trig, probability, calculus... I knew I would be an artist or a musician, but math and science were (are) a big part of my being. I turned down a scholarship to study chemical engineering, much to my parents' chagrin, but I chose the better direction for myself and they know it. My main area of art study was ceramics, which is probably one of the most science and math oriented art careers I knew of. I was all about formulating my own clays and glazes, in addition to various kiln designs and firing methods... the pyro in me.

Did you ever consider auditing some art classes now?

Erik: Thanks for sharing about Ansel Adams. I didn't know about his music. That's wild. My girlfriend's son was on the verge of being a full-time professional photographer... we have a number of his large format b/w photos mounted and framed in the house. He's a big fan of Adams' work. However, he decided to attend Le Cordon Bleu in California and is now a darned good pastry chef. That's his calling. Believe me. If he lived back here in Missouri, we'd be in serious trouble with our waistlines.

Here's a quick intermission: a page of dragon head designs that I was working on during the Dragonwing build. You can see that they all have the same facial expression, but I was trying different styles of dragon using the exact same emotional vibe.

Notice all the lines that don't seem to have anything to do with anything. Those are my thought processes and I depend on 'em. Too often, people try to be cartoon clean, which has no life, no vigor.

This is about 18" tall, btw. Drawing larger forces you to use bigger sweeps of the hand or arm, which is where I suppose a lot of my organic quality comes from.

Since nobody else has asked yet- how does it sound? :)

Hey, good question, Aaron! This is always a tough one for me to answer, because it requires interpretation and communication of something subjective and nonverbal. The guitar is real tight. If you notice something about a lot of my guitars, I'm kind of a minimalist about electronics and hardware. I also attach my pickups directly to the guitar body most often, rather than employ bezels. Whether you believe that enhances tone or not, what it does do is keep "extra-curricular" vibration to a minimum.

This particular guitar has a real low action, too. REAL low. Playing it is effortless. The Dragonwing was much like this, too.

The Nocturne has 2 square carbon fiber rods in it flanking the dual action truss rod, but I doubt this neck is going anywhere. The CF adds to the "tightness" I feel when playing it, too. It's got a real good sound unplugged and I've not detected any dead spots whatsoever.

There was a recent thread about pickup placement that was interesting, because builders with experience cut through the hype that is rampant out there about some magical location where the pickups need to be. The pickup placement on this guitar was almost an afterthought, based mostly on the breaks in those scrolls! Though, I did know what to expect from it soundwise. I don't like as trebly a sound as many electric players like, so you'll find me pushing my bridge pickups forward a little.

The pickup is a Kent Armstrong mini-humbucker... the kind he hand-winds as a floating neck position pickup. I like a good clear pickup. What people call "warmth," to me, is just a little bit of distortion. I prefer a pickup that doesn't warm up too soon, because I want to be able to get loud, but clear. Clint Searcy builds me some pickups like that, but I had this mini-bucker that I wanted to use, because of the size. I play chords a lot that are made up of close harmonies that turn to mud if the pickup is too warm or distorted. A nice clean, clear pickup gives me the definition I'm looking for.

I didn't use an onboard EQ or preamp for the Baggs T-bridge, but I run it and the mag into an UltraSound PAMM (preamp mini-mixer) to blend the two and EQ 'em the way I want. I like having that offboard, but that's because I like the space on the guitar for the visuals, rather than controls.

I don't know if I answered your question effectively or not, Aaron, but I appreciate your coming out of the shadows to ask it! Thanks.

Jeffery, that last drawing is amazingly revealing. It makes me feel almost like I could do this.

I toldja! Like anything else, it takes practice to get good at it, but it's not magic. This is a unique forum in that everyone here is somehow driven to design, build, or create. I posted that drawing specifically because I knew most of you would have an epiphany when you saw it. That's what we want... to have an a-ha moment that let's us interpret and apply our own methodology to it. Know what I mean? It's not that I'm insecure about everyone copping my style. I just like to promote individual development. I've always learned more when I've been forced to think something through on my own.

If you notice on the guitar, I don't repeat any of the scrolls exactly. Even the ones that look mirrored at the bottom of the tailpiece aren't alike. Patterns drive me nuts. I can spot a sequence or repeated pattern in a heartbeat and it's annoying. When I figure out the pattern on a tile floor or printed fabric, it totally ruins the mystique for me! So, I try to stay as random or non-repititious as I can with my own stuff.

Take a look at the work gun-engravers do. They've usually just got a couple of licks or riffs that they repeat over and over. I'm not criticizing it. It's a decorative art. They're real repetitious, but they've figured out a style or two that works for them... like a guitarist learns to solo. Study some styles (or make up your own) and pull the defining features (licks) out to incorporate into your own curves and mutate/vary 'em a bit.

I'm pleased everyone is still enjoying the thread. I feel like all I've done is talk about myself. I do hope it's been informative as well as entertaining.

I remember a comment from someone who had excellent drawing skills. He replied that if you do it 8 hours a day for most of your life, you should develop some ability at the process.

Aren't skills annoying that way? :) A friend told me how to learn to read sheet music really well. He said "You get yourself a stack of sheet music about this high. Sit down, take the first sheet, and play through it. Put it in another pile. Take the next sheet, and play through it. When you've gone through that pile of music -- get yourself another stack of sheet music about this high..." :)

Wouldn't know where to start on something like that.

As usual a really good shape to the guitar.

Alan

Jeffrey,

I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed this thread, and your interaction with everyone. Refreshing to see this kind of open discussion. This post and this guitar is what has moved me to try this long planned project.

Would it offend you if I had some help on this cnc project I want to do? ;) I know a very talented wood carve in his own right, who just happens to be a computer guru with the same software I use for design. He told me if I would do the sketches (I'm still going to have to have some hand work in this), that he would be glad to do the 3d modeling for me, or at least get me started.

What part of Missouri do you hail from? I used to live just out side of KC and am only 8 hrs south of there now. Small world isn't it?

Mike

Awesome work Jeffrey, and really informative!I wish more professionals in art would give lectures to art students in collage. I graduated with a BFA in oil painting... I do graphic design now for an apparel company. At least I'm in the art field.

I've seen the Satyrn and DC jazz, whet else do you have done? That's a cool piece of walnut on the Satyrm.

One more and you'll hit the century mark on this thread. I'm not sure I've ever seen that here.

If you notice something about a lot of my guitars, I'm kind of a minimalist about electronics and hardware. I also attach my pickups directly to the guitar body most often, rather than employ bezels. Whether you believe that enhances tone or not, what it does do is keep "extra-curricular" vibration to a minimum.

I'm not sure I'd use the word "enhance", but I agree... even though I hadn't really thought about it in those terms until now. My first guitars were both single pickup jobbies, no pots, just a jack. I did use bezels but that was as much impatience as it was tradition at the time.

But that simplicity was more a factor of being a guitar bum at the time, and all my cash had gone into a hunk of 8/4 satinwood and everything else was hand-me-downs. (whoops, I'm rambling.)

The minimal treatment had several advantages, I think, but primary for me was it forced me to not muck about with the controls, because there weren't any. I do remember this much about the sound: they had monster sustain, and there wasn't any rattle and buzz besides my inept trussrod adjustments. And, at least logically, keeping the parts count low has to have a beneficial effect as there are fewer bits trying to vibrate at different frequencies.

Jeffery, thanks so much for sticking with us.

Some thoughts of mine on drawing:

I believe we - as humans - possess an innate ability to draw, just as we possess the ability to communicate through other means, like writing, speaking, singing, or waving our hands.

It's just my opinion, but I think if you can hold a pencil and write, you can draw. It's just a different language that few people bother to develop beyond childhood. The primary thing standing in anyone's way is the fear of drawing badly.

My partner Donna refuses to sing in front of anyone - even me, but I hear her singing with the radio when she thinks no one's around. She's got the sweetest little singing voice that moves me everytime I hear it. Just because she doesn't sound like Celine Deon doesn't mean that her singing voice isn't accomplishing something meaningful or good.

Just because a person can't or doesn't draw like a photograph, it doesn't mean a person can't communicate, even to him or herself, which is really my whole point for drawing anyway. I draw for me, to help me establish plans for the work I do in a completely different medium. I *CAN* draw like a photograph, but why would I want to? I can use a camera for that. My drawings communicate so much more, so much more spontaneously.

Just remember that it's all about looking, even if that looking only exists inside your head, which, ironically, it only does anyway. You can see with your eyes, but you look with your brain.

Donl: I'm filing that music reading anecdote right where I can get at it easily later. That's a good one!

Mike: Again, good luck on your project! If you need a set of eyes to take a look at your drawing, let me know.

I live just South of Joplin, MO, outside a little town called Neosho. You're 8 hours South of KC... like in Texas?

Nathan: So many people can't see the forest for the trees about professional art careers, but when I give lectures at schools and such, I explain how every product in virtually every store or catalog had a professional artist's hand in it somewhere along the way. It's a HUGE, HUGE field. Why so many parents think that the only way to make a living in art is teaching is beyond me. Teaching is one of the worst paying and certainly least available art jobs that I know of. Last I heard, there are something like 120 art ed grads for every single actual art teaching job.

I know you probably have plans to keep painting (I hope), but there's no shame in graphic design, that's for sure. More people see your graphic work than may have seen your paintings. Anytime I got in a discussion with an artist who was just a bit pretentious or snobbish, I've casually mentioned to him or her that my work was sold in Walmart or comic book stores all over the world and seen by not just a handful of people at a gallery opening, but by millions.

Granted, only a small percentage of devoted fans or collectors knew my affiliation with specific pieces and only a few toy companies would bother to include production credits on the packaging, but it was cool to know that my work was reaching people on such a scale, even if they didn't know my name.

Johnathan: The Satyrn is the newest guitar I wanted to start a new thread with, if only to get some feedback on the bridge. It's a great-sounding guitar and I've included some fun features on it that I hope to refine and use again.

I'm tweaking out the Skull and Roses Arcadia DC as we speak. It's together, but I've not photographed it yet. I've had it on hold for awhile so I could finish some others, as well as build a new neck with an ebony fretboard for it. It looked cool with the original neck, but I liked it better with an ebony board instead of maple. I'll use the maple-board neck on something else, believe me.

For anyone who hasn't seen the Skull and Roses, I'll attach a pic.

Erik: You know, I've just never been a gearhead. What I mean is, even when I was a 16 year old kid with a '67 GTO, I had an uncle who built my engine and helped with the other mechanicals. My brother was a gearhead, as well. Sure, I cared about performance, but I was always the aesthete of the family. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I played jazz boxes with single neck pickups for years, so I've got kind of minimalist switching tendencies. Even when I played a Strat, I really only used 2 switching positions. I rarely used the bridge pickup by itself.

Of course, if a player desires or needs more pickups or switching, I'm happy to oblige. I just call Clint Searcy and hope he's got time to talk me through it. :)

Jeffrey I will take you up on the eyes. I live in Arkansas not too far from Hot Springs.

Did you grind your own tools for the roses?

Mike

Arkansas is one of my favorite states. While I've spent a lot of time hiking, backpacking, and canoeing through the Northwest quadrant, I've spent hardly any time down around Hot Springs.

I make a lot of my own tools, mostly knives gouges and scrapers, but on the roses I think I used the mini stump burrs that I get from Wood Carvers Supply. They come in a variety of tiny sizes. After roughing them out with the burrs in my flexible shaft handpiece, I switched to a tiny, tiny knife that I get from Micro Mark. It's like a miniature Xacto handle that uses these teeny little replacement scalpel blades. I can work real cleanly with that and not have to come back in with sandpaper. I think I hit them lightly at the end with a 3M radial bristle disc in my handpiece just to knock off a little fuzz, too.

This pic is a shot of two of my medium-sized rough-out carving knives. My dad makes dozens of woodcarving knives every year, though I shaped and finished the handles of these. I wanted a specific handle profile - asymmetrical - that would give my hand the most comfort and leverage for long stretches of time.

Here's a shot of the handle profile from the back end. The more squarish edge fits into my bent fingers for a better grip and control of the knife with just a simple motion with the fingers, rather than turning the whole hand at the wrist.

Jeffrey, if you don't mind me asking, how do you construct your set necks? Do you have a tenon that extends deeper into the body? Just curious.

About the graphic design job, it's fun. I get to draw a lot and see my work all over. When I finished my degree I had no idea about the job market.... lack of research on my part.

Nathan, usually, I extend the neck down about 2/3 the way through the neck pickup position. I leave it the full thickness until after it's glued up, THEN, I rout out the pickup cavity. Simply put, I usually have a "tang" running into the neck postion pickup cavity.

On the Nocturne, the end of the neck extends under the scroll carving on the end of the fretboard. It's shaped like the end of my Kronos model bolt-on necks so I can maximize the amount of neck under that carved flourish. In hindsight, I wish I'd have taken photos of it to show.

One thing that I've learned to do for my particular methodology is to leave a long tab on the body. In the attached photo, you can see the tab before I carved it away. My primary reason for this is to allow myself plenty of stock to blend with the neck. I carve the neck almost completely before setting, but leave the guitar end of it a little ambigous so that again, I have enough stock to blend well with the body.

In the past, there were a couple of times when I wished I'd have had more wood there so that I could contour the body into the neck. It also gives me the chance to assess and adjust how much gluing surface I need to leave.

I prefer to carve the heck out of that joint and eliminate anything remotely resembling a heel, but occasionally, I have to leave a bit more body for neck joint strength.

Does that answer your question? I'll elaborate if you need me to, but it's really just kind of common sense. I like to carve and contour the neck joint, so I leave more stock initially. By leaving the tab like that on the body rough cut-out, I can also switch gears before I rout the neck pocket and have enough room to make a bolt-on neck joint. I've learned to stay a bit flexible in the early stages of a guitar build and create a few escape hatches - so to speak - just so I can change my mind if I have some kind of design epiphany.

I have some great friends from college who were painters and now they're commercial illustrators. One of them does illustration and animation for a children's learning software company and another used to work for Dreamworks in California. I like having painters doing the illustration and graphic design, because you guys definitely have the selective aesthetic processes down cold. You don't just throw something together without a lot of careful thought. If you had the time, you'd think all day about the placement of just a couple brush strokes. Thomas Hart Benton used to put his paintings under glass just so he'd stop painting on 'em.

Me, I can't eat ice cream like a normal person. I'm like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind with mashed potatoes.

For kicks, here's the "heel" of a current build in progress to further illustrate how I feel about heels on electric guitars. On my bolt-ons, the heel is a necessary evil that I try my best to contour and make comfortable, but on my set-neck instruments, I use the glued-in aspect to my design advantage. It's labor-intensive, but my intention isn't to copy factory-made guitars. The factories are better and faster than I'll ever be at that, so I try to go in the directions they don't usually go.

Thank you for answering. That's how I thought you did it but you never know. I'm currently working on a neck-through guitar which I'll blend the neck into the sides. I call it "oreo" the sides are cocobolo, maple, cocobolo... I'll post it when it gets finished.