my cream neck binding came in the mail today. what joy. it's just plastic. it's really going to bring this neck back from the dead or kill it for good.
the first thing i did is fire up a bowl of boiling water and stick it in. i'm not sure how bendable this stuff is so i figured it would help to melt it. i have to bend it into the shape of the neck. but melting sucked and it was better to bend it the way it was. plastic is incredible.
here i am trying to get the bend just right. it wants to fight you but you got to keep fighting back.
then you got to get some superglue and start gluing and clamping. glue and clamp. glue and clamp.
i really can't believe this was so easy. it looks pretty already.
then came the scraping. binding will not fit perfectly so you have to shave it down with some sort of knife or razor. i found this bad ass knife in the garage and it looked pretty tough. i cut myself about 4 good times and there is blood all over the wall and the bed for some reason. sounds like a typical weekend for mike kevich. just trying to see if you're still reading this mike.
so here it is all nice and leveled on the top, just a few more touches and we're done.
this is the seagull. given to me by sean bonnet in tucson. he said that the problem with guitar was that he kicked a hole in it and then smashed it through a wall so the neck has been busted to the point where it wouldn't play. he also said if i screw this up it was no big deal. with that in mind.......first thing is to take the neck off. i think.
boom! pretty easy stuff because the seagull has a bolt on neck. next step is to remove the binding and separate the top from the body.
came off pretty easy using a razor blade and my muscles. so this is our hole. it about a shoe size 9 to 10.
there is no info on the internet about how to solve this problem so i thought i'd just start carving into this thing. i pulled out the japanese saw that ian dixon told me to buy and started to saw.
thats a great feeling to saw into something.
here's where i bust the piece out. sweet jesus that's a clean cut.
while i figure out what i'm going to do about all that, i turn to the dislocated neck. the block was cracked so i decided to throw some glue up in it and clamp for dear life.
at this point i'm all out of ideas. more to come when i figure something out.
so i tore off all the wrap last night and i was left with tons of glue still stuck on the drum. i called a few places around town trying to get a quote for some work. i called the pro drum shop and they gave me a phone number for a dude named matt. i called and left him a message. i figure i'd take the next step and hit the shell with some paint remover to get the glue off. paint remover is really fun to use. everything just melts away, even your skin when you get some on your arms. after that i sanded for a bit. my god this is some nice wood.
so i'm sitting here staring at this drum when matt calls. i tell him the situation. i've done all the prep work and now i just needed some help with the gluing. he said it would be stupid to pay someone to do that and he told me i had it within me to do it. matt has a lot of faith in me. i told him i wasn't ready for the responsibility. matt shushed me down and told me he would walk me through it over the phone.
he told me that i needed some elmers glue and some hi-bond tape from www.drumfoundry.com. matt said that i could do anything i put my mind to. this one's for you matt.
holy crap. look at this guy and his glass harmonica invented by my historical homeboy benjamin franklin. they say that this thing is the first synthesizer and i think that they are right. there's a bowl of water to keep your fingers wet and everything.
this lady is rad as well. she's taking the glass harmonica to the people. here's what she writes..... The instrument, an invention of Benjamin Franklin, was quickly banned after its inception. It was said to provoke insanity. The unique harmonics have also been said to import therapeutic powers.
so this is a drum. it's a nice 1960's era camco tom. i bought it with hopes of restoring it.
here i am pulling off the old wrap that is beat up to hell.
this should be easy. just glue the new wrap onto the drum. but all the old glue didn't come off with the wrap! all of a sudden i don't think it's that easy.
this drum is pretty rare and if i screw it up, i'll never forgive myself. it's so easy to be brave when you are working on a piece of crap. so let me show you this wrap i got. it was discontinued like 30 years ago because people hated it. so it's super hard to get a hold of. i waited about 4 years to come across this searching everyday on ebay. now i'm getting cold feet. these are the struggles of the unemployed.
if you stare at this thing to long you might puke or a sailboat will appear.
ok. here's a picture of the fretboard being glued together again after fixing the broken truss rod.
so now i'm going to see about putting some binding around the fretboard. i have no idea what i'm doing at this point. there's some fun in blindly doing repair jobs and then there are days where i wish i could talk to someone who could just tell me how to do these things. all this internet research is bringing me down. when i get all this crap together, i think i'll enroll in some kind of mentoring program for little dudes who want to do this crap. i can see that happening.
new record from ben barnett aka/ blunt mechanic. releases january 12th on barsuk records. and a new video made with the joy of exploring imovie and the possibilities of the world around you. ladies, i give you, blunt mechanic.
