Most folks know George Thomas as a sober, meticulous and masterful luthier building beautiful guitars in the classic tradition but today I discovered another side of the man. The wild and crazy side.
He has been building Cigar Box guitars using tin cans, metal salad bowls, cookie tins and of course cigar boxes of all sizes for the bodies. Some of them are outfitted with electronic pickups with various control knobs, Sound hole covers are sink drains from the local hardware store. Fittings are all sorts of odd metal pieces. Truly a whimsical, amusing and creative endeavor.
So here is the master luthier standing beside his collection. Amazingly, some of them sound pretty darn good. George claims he ia learning things from each instrument. I only learned that wooden instruments sound better than tin can instruments and that George has a strong sense of whimsey.
Meanwhile, back in my ukulele workshop, the clamps came off of the fretboard of 130 and were switched over to 129. Always fun to get the fretboards glued on, then the neck can be finished and you can begin to see the finished product.
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Now with rasp and scraper, sandpaper and elbow grease the necks are carefully shaped and smoothed to be sleek and playable.
And spalted maple peg head plates are chosen to fancy up the instrument. I hope to get these installed tomorrow.
