Buzz

Well, this past Saturday I decided that it was time to get a buzz cut. Brent was gracious enough to give me my virgin cutting, thanks Brent!

Here is the before:

Of course I had to leave the Mohawk as the last stage of cutting. I know there isn't much hair there to really be a Mohawk, but I can dream right?

Here's the after:

Over the years the hair line just keeps receding further and further back and the top just keeps getting thinner and thinner so it was just time to do the right thing and cut it all off, that way all of the scalp has equal opportunity to get sun.

I love it, took a few showers to get used to how much shampoo to actually use, but that's all under control now. The only thing now is to figure out how to clean up the mess after cutting it at home and which bathroom to use.

That's about all for now. I think Stacy and I will be making some wine here soon, so stay tuned for some great summer wine. We are debating between what we made for the wedding (Blackberry Merlot) or a new flavor called Calypso Bianco(more citrus for summer). Leave a suggestion if you want to help us decide.

Cheers!

Finished Snares

Well here are some finished pictures of Penny (Brent's snare he made) and Bloodshot (the snare I made for Brent).

Brent and I will be in discussions soon on the new line of K & L Drum Company drums. Stay tuned!

Wedding Slide Show

Here is a slide show of our wedding. Our photographer Shawna put this together. Thank you Shawna you're the best!

This is also posted on Stacy's blog, but for those of you that don't know her I'll post it here too.

http://www.schaubphotography.com/slideshows/Lastinger/

Guitar Time Baby!

Well, I'm on my last day off before I go back to the grind. So, today I decided to get some work done on the guitar that seems everybody wants me to get done. So what if it's been 5 years in the making people!!!

So, to let you know what I've got ... It's a carved top soloist body made from swamp ash and has a AAAAA quilt maple top. I also had a black line put in between the two layers to give it that ever so little style mark. The body has been prepped, stained orange, coated with sand and sealer, and a few cans of nitro of clear. I felt this wasn't sufficient protection so I brushed on 2 more coats of nitro sand and sealer, level sanded that and now I'm putting on the final coats/can of nitro clear. So far I gotta say it's turning out great! The way the clear is going on I could go right to buffing and no level sanding. But, the perfectionist in me will do some wet sanding before the final buffing. Okay, what I've done today was at 10:00 am I put on a coat of clear and let it dry for 4 hours. At 2:00pm today I put on another coat of clear (took pictures) and will let that cure for another 4 hours and at 6:00pm tonight I'll put on another coat. I won't be able to due much more until next weekend, due to we are going home for the weekend to pick up the cats.

I'm working on the neck at the same time. Currently I'm only working on the head stock. I've stained it orange, brushed on 2 coats of sand and sealer, leveled, and am putting on the final coats of clear. I added clear to the head stock at the same times as above. Once the body and head have cured for a few weeks, I'll finish the rest of the neck.

We have a new computer so I'll have to experiment on how to download the pictures ... so for now this post is just text and will have to edit later when I figure out how to download the pics off of the camera.

If anyone has any name suggestions please feel free to let me know. I know I really have to wait until it's finished before it's named, but I'm always open for suggestions. And Jeff ... you'll be the first to actually play this baby, so be ready! Perhaps you can give it a test ride for a few weeks at the kids thingy you play at for church.

Later all ...

Here are some pictures:

Here are all the parts.

This pic is just trying to show you the depth of the grain pattern in the wood. You have to ignore the whiteout of the flash, I'll have to see if I can take better pictures in the sun when it's all finished.

This pic is showing the shine & smoothness I'm all ready getting before any buffing. I'm getting better at this stuff I think.

Here's the head stock, a little orange peel but that's easy to get smooth on this small of an area.

Back From The Honeymoon

We're back ... to be honest we didn't want to come back. Stacy and I went to wine country in California (Sonoma Valley be be more specific). We met with a few winery owners and that was a blast. I'll be more specific on 3 of them. First, Robert Hunter. Sweetest old man I've ever met in my life. His assistant Kurt met us at the winery office and gave us a tour and speech about the land and how Bob acquired the small portion (85 total acres with about 45 planted with grapes) of the land. Then we walked around the grounds of the house and we were told about the history of the gardens around the house. All this time we didn't know that this house we were walking around was the house of Bob and his wife. All of a sudden we heard a door close and this tall older gentleman is walking toward us. We were able to sit down with Bob and Kurt on the back patio which was on a lookout over looking the valley. We (Stacy, I, Kurt and even Bob) tasted the sparkling wine the Robert Hunter Winery produces, then the Pino Noir. Then we just sat there and chit chatted with Bob and Kurt for about 45 minutes. (Now folks this is a real treat in wine country to be able to sit and just talk with a winery owner like this.) They are running low on the Chardonnay and the Cabernet Sauvignon so we didn't get to taste those, but Kurt was gracious enough to let us do a barrel tasting of the Chardonnay. Barrel tasting is always a treat, at least it makes me feel special.



Next was Little Vineyards:

When we arrived at this winery there was this blond headed gentleman straightening a sign in a pickup truck, he saw us pull up and he just smiled, waved, then finished straightening up the sign and walked over to us and introduced himself as Rich Little. This owner was the coolest cat I've met in a long time. We walk up to the tasting room and he pulls out a bottle of wine called Band Blend and he points to a picture on a shelf and says there's a picture of Kurt Hammett (guitar player for Metallica) showing off our Band Blend wine. Not only does this wine have a cool label but it tastes great too. We start talking about how he got started in the winery business, then next thing I know he's talking about how he plays an instrument called the Stick (basically it's a guitar and bass in one and is played by tapping, shown above) and Rich was kind enough to give us a sample of his playing. Kurt has some awesome grooves, keep up the good work. Then we get on the subject of the recording studio that Rich as built on the winery grounds. Let me tell you, this place is the coolest. There are vintage amps and guitars all over the place, on the walls, in cubby-holes. Recording equipment everywhere. I guess when Joe Satriani was in town his band came over to the studio/winery for a few hours to hang out and have a relaxing time. Some other musicians have come out to get their initial recording down then they send it out to get finalized. To tell you the truth, I don't remember any names, mostly due to by this time Rich and I have talked about instruments/music/wine for about an hour and we've been drinking wine the whole time with no food in my stomach. Yeah, I was getting a bit drunk. When I get the pictures downloaded I'll post some pics of the trip for you all.


Lastly was the owners of the place we stayed:
Suzy and Squire Fridell, the Glen Lyon Estate Cottage. The people were fantastic people. Unfortunately they have a very busy weekend and we didn't get to spend much time with them. They had a bottling which Stacy and I were able to help with. Not much help, but we at least were able to get in there and say we did something. I've done "home bottling" and this winery wasn't much more sophisticated than that. It was quite the experience to see the in between winery in action meaning, they are in between the big producers where everything is automated, and the home winery where everything is done by hand and very little machine work. Mostly there was very little done with machine, again I'll post some pics when I get them downloaded. Then they had a party at there house, these two events took up Suzy and Squires time just enough to where is clashed with our schedule that we didn't get to do any tastings or get the tour of the property. I'm truly saddened by this because whenever we met someone who asked where we were staying, and our reply was at the Glen Lyon Cottage. Everyone, and I mean everyone, would say "Oh Squire and Suzy, they are the greatest people". So I'm saddened that we didn't get to spend more time with them other than the quick chats in passing. But, Stacy and I are already planning our next trip out there and will hopefully be staying at the cottage again. So, we'll just plan in advance to spend more time with them next time. When is next time? Well I'm ready to sell a kidney to pay for the trip right now, but we'll just have to save and see when we can afford the trip. Ideally, our 1 year anniversary is the goal.

Well this is about a novel in length. I'll stop here for now and start having Stacy download the pictures at her work and I'll get some pics post for all to see. So, to recap ... we spent a week tasting some of the greatest wines, meeting some really great people, and purchasing a lot of wine.

Later all ...

Sorry For the Delay

Wow, a lot has been going on here. First, I apologize to everyone who's been faithfully checking the blog to see the updates on the snare only to find there haven't been any for quite some time. I can no longer access my account at work with our new servers. I don't know why, but oh well.


Next, I'm married!!!! The wedding went great. A huge thank you to my family, I love you all. A big thank you to my groomsmen, you guys are the best. A big thank you to the brides maids, you ladies are the best also. We all had tons of fun and I love you all. I'm packing right now for my honeymoon but am waiting for laundry to dry so I can finish and decided to waste some time getting some picks up of the drum.


I gave my best man the drum on Friday (June 1st). I rendered him speechless, a feat that isn't easy to do with Brent. In short he really loves the drum and I can't wait to build another one, but I feel that I should get my guitar finished before I start any other projects. For more comments from Brent visit his blog (I've added the link on the side bar).


Now ... on with the pictures.




Here is the drum with the tribal sticker in place and I have scored and removed the clear coat and tape around the bearing edges. This was something that I learned that I should do before the clear coat gets too thick. Brent taught me that one, sorry that he learned that the hard way (Chip City on poor Penny). But, it taught me a valuable lesson. So, thank you Brent and Penny for your sacrifice for the greater good.



The next few weeks after the above picture was taken was laying on the clear coat. Nothing exciting. I sprayed a coat on in the morning before I left for work, then after work I would spray on another coat. This went on until 4 cans of nitro were on (I don't remember the exact time line, but it was round 2-3 weeks). After that was finished I had to let the clear cure. With nitro lacquer you have to let it cure for about 3 weeks, then it's hard enough to buff to a nice deep shine. It cured and it was wet sanded down to 2000 grit. All that was left was the final buffing.

Okay, I know I'm not supposed to divulge mistakes or flaws of the project, but the next series of events was a mistake/flaw that I didn't expect, but I have to mention. The problem was overcome and I learned a great deal from it so I feel that it's worth posting.

Well, my bachelor party was on May 12th. I decided to put all of the drum stuff in the attic, because if Brent saw one piece of anything, he'd know it was a drum part and the surprise would be ruined. So, up to the attic the drum went. After the weekend I took the drum down and noticed a crack had formed along the edge of the sticker in a small area. I decided no big deal lacquer cracks or checks often and I'll clean the area up with an exacto knife and drop fill with some lacquer let it settle for a few days, sand it down and viola problem solved. Well, not solved, bigger problem had happened while cleaning the crack. When I went to score the crack with the knife the lacquer in that area peeled right off of the tribal sticker. It hit me like a brick, right then I knew the lacquer didn't stick at all to the vinyl sticker. To test my theory I laid a piece of tape in another area of the tribal sticker and ripped it off ... yup ... clean break right along the edge of the sticker and paint.


It took 2 days of research to find the solution, but it was found. I had to remove the rest of the lacquer that was on top of the tribal sticker and then put an automotive grade clear coat on top of everything. Now I don't have any spray equipment so I had to brush this stuff on. This is not recommended by the manufacturer, FYI. I had no choice but to brush it on. I found an article by a gentleman in Michigan that refinishes old pinball machine fields. Very informative and he tested several auto clears in a brush on application and basically said, yup not recommended, but works. It just takes a lot of elbow grease to level the surface, but it can be done. So, with some new confidence I went for it.





Here it is. Automotive clear brushed on. It looked like complete poo!!! But I knew the new surface could be leveled smooth. Just had to keep telling myself to have some patients.






Above was after round one of sanding. This was about 45 minutes of sanding with 220 grit sand paper. This automotive clear was some hard stuff.







Round Two: this was after another hour of sanding with the 220 grit. As you can see I started making progress. The "white" areas are the areas that are level, the "shiny" areas are the pits and I have to keep on sanding to get those pits out.





Round Three: Here is the drum after a total of about 2.75 hours of sanding. Almost there, just a few shiny spots left to get out and I can start the wet sanding stages.


I did end up getting all of the shiny spots out and the clear level. Took me a total of about 4 hours. Then I wet sanded for another 3 hours. Started with 600 grit wet worked my way to 2000 grit. So, it was 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000. I then used my 6" orbital buffer with some 3M machine polish. There it was, the clear coat looked like glass. I finished up the surface with some 3M Hand Glaze, not necessary, but I wanted to do it to give it that deep shine that that drum deserved.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it finished. You'll have to visit Brent's blog to see some pictures of it finished. I'll be going back home in 2 weeks, perhaps I'll remember to take the camera and visit Brent so I can get some finished pictures of the drum. Time just got away from me and all of a sudden in was wedding weekend.