WS 017 SPRINGER

The springer

Last year I made a guitar for my Freddy down in San Fransisco. You can get a little refresher here;

https://wsbluesbox.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/the-freddy/

Anyhow, Freddy’s friend Scott Springer saw his guitar and contacted me not long afterwards. Scott had to wait for a bit as I have a bit of a wait list these days but finally in Dec 2011 I was able to get rolling on his new WS Bluesbox cigar box guitar! As you can see, it turned out great! Scott picked out a beautiful burgundy box and we were on our way.

It has a maple neck with a runner of blood wood down the center of the fret board. Again, I kept with my brass theme and used simple brass bolts, a door hinge, and tarp rivets for the adornments to keep it all balanced. The fact that the writing on the box was in gold, helped bring it all together visually.

I got this sweet Nat Sherman box from my good all friends down at Sector 9 skateboards. It is a reoccurring theme, I know, but they just keep sending awesome boxes up to me. Thanks alot guys! This box also had a beautiful clear finnish over its deep burgundy color which will definitely help keep this guitar looking great over the years.

I put a little more time and shape into the neck on this one. I had used a thicker piece of maple which offered me a little more room to be creative. It also allowed for me to make the neck slightly thicker to add strength against bending from the string tension. this is something I have to consider as I don’t yet install truss rods.

Over the holidays I got together with my father and we came up with an official WS logo for our building endeavors. The WS stands for Williams and son and my father will be using this logo on all his builds. As of right now he builds hard wood guitar stands, guitar picks, jig dolls, and Dulcimers. It is something we can both use and are proud of. I think it is classy and holds the spirit of what my father and I are trying to do and represent!

    I tried looking at a few different options for the neck wood and fret board but I felt the deep burgundy of the box really only worked with the maple I had. I found an old fret board slat that was left over from the  Hank III guitar I built, so I decided to go with that. The blood wood, once stained, also looked great against the burgundy box.

I have to admit that this might one of the best sounding CBG’s I have built! It has a beautiful tone and great volume! This is just a little jam in Open F. Something quick and off the cuff so you can hear its great tone!

If you are still interested and reading this, below is a few of the steps I took while building this CBG;

This is everything once I had chosen my woods.

After I had shaped the neck, I was ready to glue the fret board on.

My Dad had made all these great and invaluable cork clamps for me. I use these for every stage of building that requires glueing and clamping. Here I have glued the fret board on and it is being held in place with said clamps. I let the glue dry and cure for at least 24 hours before I remove the clamps. After the that I sand down any over hanging fret board so that it is flush with the neck.

When I went over to beautiful Gabriola Island to spend the Christmas holidays, I got into the workshop with my Old Man and I was able to put the time into cutting the fret slots. The square is invaluable in making sure my cuts were straight. Once I was done cutting the frets, I extensively sanded the fret boards until it was in an almost polished state. I then stained it with a natural wood tone stain. I was then able to stencil on the artwork that Scott had wanted at the base of the neck and get a couple of coats of varnish on it. Now it was ready for the frets.

Using a small finishing hammer and some fret nippers, I got the frets laid in no time.

Now that WS had an official logo, I was ready to stencil onto the headstock. Using some green painters tape, I cut out the logo with my trusty exacto blade. I then paint over a few coats of black acrylic paint. Once it is dry, I just peel off the tape………..

…and voila, we have the new official logo on there!

These were the same steps I used to get the logo onto the base of the fret board.

Once I had installed the piezzo pick up I glued the box shut and used my trusty clamps to hold her together while it dried and cured.

Another happy customer! Scott Springer and his WS 017!

Thought I would leave you with a few shots of the slides that I make. Each WS Bluesbox guitar comes with one of these hand cut/polished beauties!

From there all I had to do was finish the nut, screw in the door hinge tail-piece, and string her up.

On to the next build!