Michael Winston Dales Guitars: Verkstaden

A Week in the Shop

15 Apr 2023 - 3D printing, amp, esp32, fret work, motor, pickups, staining

The old amp I built gets a new lease of life, I spend some quality time doing fret-work on a new neck, a bit looking at wood stains, and baby steps are made on my pickup winder.

I'm stood next to the workbench with a blue guitar amp on it, and I have a guitar plugged into the amp for testing purposes. I'm staring at the amp as I play.

A Week in the Shop

9 Apr 2023 - älgen, harley benton, staining, verkstaden

A trip to Wales, where I get to play guitars in some amazing scenery, more practicing with wood stains, and some frustrating string breakages.

Me standing holding a guitar in the Snowdia landscape, with a hill to my left and a lake to my right.

A Week in the Shop

2 Apr 2023 - 3D-printing, amp, colour, form 3, formlabs, fusion 360, stain, verkstaden

A grab bag of bits this week: 3D printing a custom control for one guitar, testing out staining options for another, fitting a new transformer to my practice amp, and doing a little bit of electronics on my pickup winder.

A set of four postcard-sized rectangles of maple on a workbench, each with a different stain blend being tested: first is just straight yello, the second is orange over yellow, the third is red over yellow, and then the last is yellow, orange, and red.

A Week in the Shop

26 Mar 2023 - älgen, design, ESP32, pickups, verkstaden

Fixing up the details on my älgen guitar build, remodeling an in-progress older build to have a fresh new look, and I curse generally about letting electronics back into my life.

The bottom end of the wooden core of älgen has a copper-tape covered cavity with all the wiring in. To close this off, there is a laser-cut cover made from frosted-translucent orange acrylic. The cover has my initials, MWD, etched into it, along with 'Älgen Prototype 1'

A Week Out the Shop

26 Feb 2023 - archtop, bhm, cad, delfinen, fusion 360, rendering, templates, verkstaden

A week spent paying off some CAD debt to fuel the workshop time, and a look at another builder of some amazing archtop guitars.

A 3D render of my älgen guitar design, which has a central wooden core that starts as the neck and continues the full length of the body, and then has a 3D printed latice either side where the guitar body would usually be.

A Week in the Shop

22 Jan 2023 - delfinen, fretting, kerf, laser-cutting, neck, palm router, verkstaden

Getting back into the swing of things with making dust in the workshop: a neck gets prepped and fretted, and I try out my new ferrule block technique to learn that it needs improving.