I'm a "Do It Myselfer"

[Sarah93003]

Jim was so great to send me a photo with the pickguards installed on his Celebrity-II. I am very happy with how they look on that guitar!

Here is before:




And here is after:




I think it looks beautiful with the tortoise "appointments". The color of the pickguards seem to accentuate the beautiful flamey top.

[JimPage]

Hey, Sarah--

Those pickguards looks so great I can't believe it. Thanks to Bob Shade for installing them!

And, for those with an interest in old houses, the image on my dining room wall, behind the Celebrity, is a full-page ad from the 1926 Sears kit-house catalog.

Our neighborhood here in Hyattsville, Maryland, is on the National Registry of Historic Places. The neighborhood is filled with old houses and many, like mine, are the old Sears kit homes.

Mine was the Fullerton model and sold in 1926 for $2,243. Two story, three bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths. These things arrived in two railroad cars at the hardware store about a mile from here and were transported to the building site by horse-drawn wagons.

Once you had your house completed, Sears would come out and give the proud new owners a fruit tree to plant in their front yard. There are still a bunch of the fruit trees here and they blossom every spring.

--Jim

[Veenture]

oeh la-la, nice!

[GattonFan]

Those are very nice! Adds a touch of class to that Celebrity. Hope the business flourishes, Sarah!
Dennis

[Dennisthe Menace]

Ya know, the more I see this with the tortoise p'guard, and still remembering Jim's Celebrity III with the Black p'guard,
the white p'guards somehow seems to cheapen the look....almost like a Kay or Harmony copies of the Gibson 335.....

[Sarah93003]

Those are very nice! Adds a touch of class to that Celebrity. Hope the business flourishes, Sarah!
Dennis

Thank you Dennis. I'm quite happy that so far it's been paying for my materials. Once the templates are made I don't have to buy oak again so any extra will go toward a router table next. Then I've got a little list of tools I'd like to buy from Stewart MacDonald that will help me to learn more of these things.

[olrocknroller]

Hi again Sarah.

I looked over your method of routing the edges again, and I began to wonder why you don't use a small router table... I had one for years, and it worked nicely for bringing rough-cut projects down to template shapes, and you don't have to hold, or worry about the router wobbling...

[Sarah93003]

Hi again Sarah.

I looked over your method of routing the edges again, and I began to wonder why you don't use a small router table... I had one for years, and it worked nicely for bringing rough-cut projects down to template shapes, and you don't have to hold, or worry about the router wobbling...

Um, finances. It is on my To Do list. I didn't have any of these tools a year ago. I've been slowly gathering them, mostly from Craigslist. The router table makes perfect sense though. Actualy, I'm thinking about two of them so I can just leave the bits set to the desired depth and not have to mess with changing them out.

The reason I did the board method is because it was the first idea I thought of. Continuous improvement, eh?

[olrocknroller]

Hi again Sarah.

I looked over your method of routing the edges again, and I began to wonder why you don't use a small router table... I had one for years, and it worked nicely for bringing rough-cut projects down to template shapes, and you don't have to hold, or worry about the router wobbling...

Um, finances. It is on my To Do list. I didn't have any of these tools a year ago. I've been slowly gathering them, mostly from Craigslist. The router table makes perfect sense though. Actualy, I'm thinking about two of them so I can just leave the bits set to the desired depth and not have to mess with changing them out.

The reason I did the board method is because it was the first idea I thought of. Continuous improvement, eh?

I hear you. I also used to put small cabinet knobs on the backs of my templates...they saved a lot of chances to slip fingers into that flying bit! I haven't priced a table recently, but the one I had was quite inexpensive. An example is at this URL...

http://www.amazon.com/RAS450-450-Square-Inch-Aluminum-Top-Benchtop-Extensions/dp/B0007DFX4S/ref=sr_1_9?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1306597615&sr=1-9

[Sarah93003]

Yes indeed, that would do the trick! I will be on the look out.