Hey everyone! I've had some cool stuff in the shop lately. Like this 1930s Gibson L-00. This guitar came in for a complete restoration, and it needed it. I started off this restoration by taking the neck off as it needed to be reset. As for the body of the guitar I went through the sound hole and reglued the braces that were decoupled and fixed the cracks.

Once the body was solid I put the neck back on, refretted the fingerboard, and made a new bridge. Of course, the guitar was cleaned and hand polished. It also received new tuners and Stringjoy strings.

I've also started on another Brooks Acoustic Custom, inspired by a Martin  D-18. This guitar will have a slightly thinner body, my scalloped X-bracing, and a V-shaped neck.

I asked people to vote on the paint over on Facebook, so put your vote in: Natural or Burst top. What would you like to see?

If you need a set up on you guitar or need one restored, or maybe you just want to play a Sleeper Conversion or a Custom Brooks Acoustic, come on by and I'll get you sorted. 

  So the custom guitar build is almost finished! Since the last post I've glued the neck on, made a bridge, and put on the tuning gears. I will let it sit under tension for a day or two then finish it off with a pickguard and LR Baggs pickup. 

   I'm still calling this guitar the custom build so if you have a good name for this guitar based on the Kalamazoo KG-11 leave it in the comments section and if I like it, we will call it that name. I've already got the wood for the next custom. That one will be rosewood back and sides, spruce top, and red cedar braces.

   This guitar sounds amazing, and I made a short clip of it. Keep in mind that my musical abilities are suffering right now as I have a torn muscle in my left shoulder making it hard to hold my fretting hand up on the neck. Once this guitar is completely finished, I will put up a better video going over all of the things this awesome guitar has going on. 

Progress on the custom guitar slowed a bit as I was having issues with my spray guns, but I have fixed the problem and moved forward. After a few more coats of nitrocellulose lacquer, it was time for sanding. I started to level the surface with 320 grit sandpaper then 600 and finally 1500. I have to wait a few more days for the finish to harden then I'll be able to buff the body to a shine. The neck is getting the same treatment and is still a few days behind the body. If all goes to plan, I'll be gluing the neck to the body next week... I'm excited!

The pictures below show the body sanded to 600 grit.

And these pictures show the body sanded to 1500 grit.

So, I've decided to go ahead and do a sleeper conversion on the Keith Urban guitar that I'm fixing up to donate to the Healing Box Project. While the paint on the guitar is really pretty, I had to put a new headstock on and patch up the couple of holes that were in the body. So the guitar doesn't look new anymore, obviously. BUT, I figured that I could at least make it sound better with a sleeper conversion. When I get done, this will be the most expensive Keith Urban Player guitar ever created. 

​Take a look at the pictures below. The top one is what I found when I opened up the Keith Urban Player guitar. The bottom one is what a sleeper conversion looks like. The bracing is optimized for tone on the sleeper conversion.

The Keith Urban guitar had a very crude scalloped bracing (which is at least something because a lot of times the braces are block braces). Something you can't see from the pictures is the bridge plate on the Keith Urban is plywood construction, not solid wood.

I'm not quite sure how the neck is attached to the body. Generally, there is a dovetail that holds the neck on the body and I can steam that off. Or on some models, they have a bolt on neck that I can take off. However, I've run into the case where a neck is held onto the body with dowel rods and there is not really a nice way of getting it off so that I can put it back together the way it was originally. With that lack of knowledge, I decided to try something new to open the guitar up and was very happy with how that turned out. 

Follow the progress on Facebook and on Instagram @RobertBrooks1911. Stay tuned!

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend! Maybe you BBQ'd with the family. Or went fishing with friends. Or enjoyed the day on the river. How did you spend Labor Day of 2018? I got to spend a portion of the day with this guy. 

Yes, that's right. That is Dillon Wilfong, from the awesome band The Matching Shoe, playing Humpty Dumpty! He absolutely shredded that guitar. It's no wonder that he and his band have generated such a high-energy following of "Shoe-Heads"! 

I had the pleasure of repairing a broken headstock on one of his favored guitars. Snapped right off! 

He was extremely happy to get his guitar back in playing condition. As you can see, I repair headstocks uniquely. My background in carpentry caused me to think a little differently about how to make these types of repairs, and I immediately brought my knowledge into the field of guitar repair when I started school. This is a repair that is made to last. 

Not sure you can see real well in this picture but my face is pretty red. I wasn't really paying attention to my skin as I was working, but when I came inside after a heavy session of sanding, my face looked beet red. Like I had been in the sun all day.

The wife said something about it the first time it happened but we didn't really think anything of it. It wasn't until I started sanding the next day that I noticed it was turning red and burning again. It seems like I am allergic to koa wood. :-/

So, if you've been hoping for regular updates this last week, they've been pretty sparse on account of the fact that I can only sand for a little bit before my skin is burning and I have to stop and wash. BUT I think I've got it ready for the paint booth! ​​

Exiting times!
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I am starting a NEW custom build based on the 1930s Kalamazoo Model KG-11.

Before I build the guitar, I am making the template and molds so that I can replicate the process with consistency. A few changes will be made from the original, though.

The KG-11 has a v-shaped neck and narrow fingerboard. The custom model (yet to be named) will have a slightly wider fingerboard and c-shaped neck. Also, the KG-11 used ladder bracing and I will be going with custom x-bracing to give it a special sound.

Follow each day's progress the The Full Custom photo gallery on Facebook and on Instagram @RobertBrooks1911. Stay tuned!