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Latest News  

 
 

Latest News - click the images to see full size

The Relic

A brand new custom Bailey 30 years old!

Ready to 'relic'

Tools of the trade

Scratching the surface Authentic

Here's the body before starting the aging process. It has been sprayed but not polished. Normally we would take extreme care and attention and several hours to acheive a perfect gloss.

In this case I just threw it on the bench and set about it with some nearby tools! The picture was supplied by Gavin to give me an idea how much aging was required.

Sandpaper was used for wearing the finish. 30 yrs of dents and bashes were carefully added including some serious gouge marks . I have to admit it was a lot of fun but painfull at the same time......

Only one way to get an authentic cigarrete burn. It is normally between the E and A tuners but Gavin wanted a Custom 'burn'.

more......................

Aging the metal parts......

.... the back of the neck and 'Case bites'

Even the logo looks old! Gavin gets the 'Bailey grin'.

Steeping in Etching fluid aged the hardware. The only problem was working out how long to leave them in for. About 48hrs did the trick.

More sanding, dinks and dents.

We learned a few more words like this....dings....bishes, boshes....bashes...mashes...and smashes

scrapes and scratches

Relic'ing a guitar turns out to be quite labour intensive. It took quite a while to make it look natural and not just a new guitar that has been dropped.

It's certainly worth all the hard work just to see the obvious glee it gave Gavin. Who wants a new guitar when you can have a RELIC!

 


April 09 BYO

Tony begins the 'Dragon'. Willem, Hans, and Fred arrive from Holland to build their first guitars.

Tony's Dragon Inlay

Willem ready to oil

Hans All Strung up Fred's fretless

Obviously there is not time for this sort of thing in the normal 5 days. Tony will return on the next course to continue with this one.

In this case Liberon finishing oil is applied to the finely sanded guitar. What a great job Willem.....nice inlays.

Here's Mark demonstrating the 'string tension simulator' to Hans.

It bends the neck as if it were strung up to pitch making fret dressing more accurate.

Some instruments, like this bass, just have something nice about them. It is just a standard really..... Mahogany neck and body with an Ebony fingerboard but it definately has the x factor.

 


 

 

March 09 BYO

An Absolute pleasure to have these four and help them all build their first guitars. William came from Brazil! The others were slightly more local.

Chris

Doug

Kieran William

The photo doesn't really do it justice but that is a stunning piece of wood. The gold hardware really sets it off.

Rock on Doug!

This shows just what is possible now on the course.

William has just discovered hi fathers fence at home in Brazil is made from purple heart! Not for long we think...

 

 


Dec BYO Special.

Tom finishes his fretless bass with a TREM!

Tom's Fretless Bass with a TREM!

Body shot showing bass trem (!!!)

First tentative notes.... A typical BYO reaction

When Tom first asked me if he could make this I did think he was a bit mad.... but aren't we all? Started on the Nov course this guitar took 8 days (3 days longer than normal) mainly because it was a thru neck design but also because of the trem.

Yes it really does have a trem and no it really doesn't have any frets.....Crazy man.....anyone want a cheese sandwich?

Hmm is it any good though?

Judging by the reaction I think it's pass standard.

 

 


More Dec BYO

Duncan Finishes his 4th byo, Paul's 3rd, Andy Wood's 2nd, and Nick Harris makes his first.

4....Nice one Duncan

3.....Go Paul......

2.....And counting 1.....Lift off.

Dunc came to finish what he had started in Nov. What a stunner.it turned out to be. The Paduak body really came up gorgeous. Highly figured flame maple neck,Gold Wilkinson trem and hardware made this guitar a touch of class.

What can you say? Absolutely fantastic - top job Paul. Great sounding acoustic built from scratch in 15 days over 3 courses.

 

Last time Andy made a set neck, double cut. It was the same colour as this one (tobacco burst). He wanted to do something different so, in the 5 days, made a bolt on style instead.

After we finished the guitars we retired to the house for a photo op. Duncan had to leave for his long drive home. There's Nick right in the middle with his custom selfmade B1.

That's Carol on the left admiring our handy work.

 


Guitar Exhibition at the Hub

Bailey Guitars invited to be among 35 makers in 'Made in Britain, Played the World Over' exhibition at the National Centre for Craft and Design

 

The List

Our Film Being Shown

Spot the Bailey Guitar Gordon Giltrap

Thanks to the Hub for asking us to be involved in this - it was a real honour.

Thats us in the middle column 4th from the bottom!

Now Showing in the foyer - Our new timelapse film. It shows the entire process of building a guitar by hand in 20 mins.

The guitar we put on display was the 'Lion Rampant' custom archtop(a clue) on loan from Alex - cheers for that.

It was just about the only left hander at the show (another clue)

It's the one in the middle...........

Gordon was the patron of the exhibition - it was all his idea so thanks to him. He played a few tunes in a room full of guitarmakers - no pressure there then......We all listened intently for buzzes and rattles etc

 

 


Nov BYO

Paul continues his acoustic, Adam makes a single cut/set neck. Duncan Starts his 4th BYO guitar. Marcel also starts his 4th Bailey BYO - a bass to be featured in the Dutch 'Bassist' mag. Tom starts to build a fretless bass with a trem - yes he is quite mad. More on Tom and Duncan in Dec.....

Paul' acoustic

Adam Brown

Marcel's 4th! Read All About it.....If you can read Dutch!

Excellent progress from Paul....He has been before. In between building his guitars he also took a cabinet makers course which has obviously helped a lot. His guitar has mahogany back and sides with a sitka spruce soundboard, the binding is snakewood.

A very decent chap indeed and a very decent guitar too. Adam chose a piece of amazaque for the cap which really came up lovely.

Marcel returns from Holland to make another beautiful bass. He made up his own shape which looks amazing, and chose a piece of Walnut for the cap.......

Thanks to Marcel for writing this amazing article. I hope they are saying nice things. We have many visitors from Holland so our reputation is growing!

 


Oct BYO

Kai makes a 'Cloud' guitar. Paul returns to start his first acoustic whilst Scott and Lewis continue work on theirs. Also Duncan Roberts makes his first.(sorry Duncan no pics....)

Time to carve the scroll

Paul bends his sides

Scott's Maccaferri Lewis' cocobolo back
Yet another first for us was Kai deciding he wanted to make a copy of Prince's Cloud guitar. The scroll was a bit tricky. We marked it out wrong here but worked it out as we went and it came out perfect in the end.

Pauls back for more. Last time he made a carved top set neck solid body electric. This time it's to start his mahogany acoustic. As they take longer he will be on the next 2 courses and should finish in Dec.

A tantalising glimpse of his Gypsy guitar in the making. Lovely dovetail joint - looks like it grew there! The rosette was tricky because of the odd shape but it came out great. Scott is nearly done Just needs to finish his neck before we can spray it.

What a goergeous piece of wood. We cannot wait to see this one finished. Lewis has a plan to inlay a butterfly into the fretboard so we will include some pics of that when the time comes.

 


Sept - BYO Amp course and New Windmill

Our New turbine goes up and the new Panels Arrive. The Story Continues....

Barry Vyse and the Byo Amper's with their babies.

BYO Boys

Our New Wind Turbine New Solar Panels
About twice a year Barry Vyse from Torres Amps comes to run his BYO Amp course in our workshop. It's a great way to get started. Even with an expert on hand to give you the right guidance it is still a tricky business and Barry is great at helping people to achieve their dream of building their own.

As if they hadn't got enough to do we roped them into helping us to erect the new windmill tower. Very exciting. More on this to follow......

There it is up and flying. The guys from the BYO amp course help us erect the tower. It should put out about 1kw in a good wind. The plan is to get the whole workshop working on only power we have generated ourselves.

We just took delivery of 6 new solar panels. That will give us another 1.3kw on a sunny day. The plan is to build a solar tracker to mount them onto. More to follow........

 


August BYO

Dave Bajic - A tough one.....

Dave Inlays his headstock

Adam with 'BYO grin' We Finally made it!
Wow this was a hard one mainly because of the bound neck and tricky shaped body. This all adds time and led to several late nights in the workshop. Binding the neck makes the fretting take longer as each fret must be undercut both sides. There may have been a few choice words on that day.

Welcome back Dave -it's like you've never been away! We've lost count of how many days Dave has been working on his Archtop masterpeice. He is inlaying a Japanese symbol with a long forgotten deep meaning. More on Dave Next time........

Adam also had his work cut out with the binding and also crown inlays. He is a BYO veteran though having built another guitar with us before so found it a little easier. As you can see it is now possible to have a gorgeous sunburst finish like this on the course....Thanks to Billy who starts work when we all finish on day 4 to get them ready for assembly day.

Joe, Dave Bajic, and Adam. Three more stunners and we all survived to tell the tale....just.

 


Wickerman Fest July 08 - Solar and Wind Powered Guitar building.

Mark was invited to build a guitar as a live demo over the weekend. Not to make things too easy he decided to use only power generated by solar and wind. The guitar was signed by most of the main stage acts including KT Tunstall!

Our Tent Before the Chaos

During

Mark Routing the Body The Finished Result with Signed Scratchplate.
Yup. Building a guitar in a tent using a 4ft windmill, a 150w solar panel and 440ah of batteries (for the techies). All in a days work. The big windmill in the background is an 8 footer which will go up at the workshop as soon as we can get to it. It should produce 1kw in a good wind.

You can see the interest we attracted. People are fascinated to see the guitar emerge from raw wood into a guitar before their eyes.

That's Bills Mill in the background helping to keep the batteries charged up.Thanks Bill for lending it to us and doing such a great job of PR on our behalf.

Also Thanks Jamie for helping out.

Not forgetting Billy and Fionna for everything.

'I used normal tools and techniques - the only difference was the power source (and the view!)

I wanted to to build the guitar totally using wind and sun power just to find out if it was possible. I had done some calculations and was fairly confident but you never know.....As it turned out I hardly put a dent in the batteries! This experience is really what convinced me it was possible to run the whole workshop this way.

Thanks to the organisers of the famous Wickerman Festival for inviting us to their fantastic festival.

Also special thanks to KT Tunstall and all the other acts for signing the guitar.

The highlight of the whole event was when they raffled the guitar on the mainstage and Mark and Carol were invited up to pick the winning ticket. 'It was the biggest stage i've ever held a guitar on and maybe next time they'll let me plug it in!

 


July - End of split course started in June.

Scott continues with his acoustic. Brian, Tony and our Rock Radio prize winner Rebekah all completed their guitars. The guys from Rock Radio and Elixir strings came down to see R's finished instrument. All were mightily impressed with the result.

Binding a maccaferri

Brian Steele Rocks!

Tony Porter Rock Radio Winner!
Scot is about half way through his maccaferri. Binding is tricky and takes a long time and a lot of patience. The result will be worth it. Brian is making a wild 6 string explorer inspired rock machine.

Here you can see him tuning for setting up his Explorer style set neck guitar. Very nice guitar. Very rock n roll. Brian also plays gypsy jazz so he's allowed to rock out occasionally. A nicer bloke you couldn't meet.

This is Tony on his last (Assembly) day (5) in the workshop. His guitar is strapped to the string tension simulator to make fret dressing more accurate. Only thing left to do after this is put the bits on, wire it up, and set it up. The last day is quite a full one! He will be emigrating to New Zealand with his guitars and his wife later in the year. Good luck Tony!!!

Left to right: Rock radio DJ Tom Russell, Bruce Falconer(BYO 228) of Elixir Strings, Rebekah - rock radio winner, and Mark.

We all did our best cool rock radio pose.... obviously I think the guitar comes off best! Apart from rebekah of course.....

 

 


June BYO Course - Another First For Bailey

First thru neck bass in 5 days!

Also the first time we have had a bass, 6 string, archtop and acoustic all at the same time.

Nearly there Dave!

Kenny Gluing the top plate

Ray's from 'Bareknuckle Pickups' guitar Neil with finished product
Dave returns once again to get some more done on his archtop. This pic was taken at the start of the five day course. During this time He managed to bind the body with Koa and complete the dovetail neck joint. He will return at the end of July to finish the rest of the woodwork.

Kenny got his course place for a birthday present...not bad eh? He has opted to make a parlour style acoustic with rosewood back and sides. Here you can see him ready to join his cedar top plate. By the end of the five days he had bent his side, installed his rosette and braced his top amongst many other things. He will be back on the next two day course.

Ray works at Bareknuckle pickups and is one of the best pickup makers in the country. It was an honour to have him on our course and as you can see he made a particularly nice blues machine. Of course he wound his own pickups for the guitar and brought them with him. This makes him the only Bailey builder so far to have done this. Nice one Ray!

In five days Neil built this 4 string thru body bass from scratch. The bass has a spalted maple cap, EMG pickups and preamp combined with a 'Ghost' acoustic bridge system. This entailed many long hours in the workshop mostly working till 11pm or later to get the job done. Actually Neil stayed an extra morning to make some final set up adjustments as there was just not enough time on the last day. You can see by his face that he likes it and it certainly sounded amazing.

 


London IMS Elixir Stand - Jade Gallagher Joins Us

Bailey guitars used to demo Elixir strings at the London International Music Show. Jade Gallagher goes for a 'B1'.

Bailey Guitars on the Elixir stand!

Some Dude

Jade Tries out a Bailey More Jade

We decided against going to the show this year and are putting the money into helping to acheive our solar powered workshop instead. Thankfully Bruce from Elixir asked if he could borrow a couple of guitars for their stand.Of course we said yes! We think Elixir are the best strings in the world so it's great to be asked by them.

Cheers Bruce!!

Here's a dude trying out our 'B1'. We had a lot of good feedback about the Bailey's at the show. It was fantastic to be able to have a presence there without actually having to go. This was made possible by a good friend of ours John Lockett who transported and collected the instruments for us.

Cheers John!

Jade Gallagher is a very up and coming singer songwriter and a great guitar player. She was booked to demo at the Elixir stand. In between sets she tried our 'B1' and became instantly attached to it. She loved the way it played and sounded so much that she got her manager to contact us about it........After several phone calls ..we made a deal.

Cheers Jade & Guy !

Jade is now formally part of the Bailey Guitar Experience extended family, and we are really proud to welcome her. There are already a few women out there using a Bailey but one more is only a bonus epecially when it's someone with Jade's calibre.She is planning to extend her current acoustic set to include some electric tracks... Check her out. We think we'll all be seeing alot more of her..

 


Early June Split Course - Rock Radio's Rebecca

Bailey guitars teamed up with Elixir strings and Rock Radio as part of their 'Rocktober' promotion. The winner designs and builds their dream guitar. This is the first half of the course.

Everyone hard at work

Scott gluing on the soundboard

Tony Carves his neck Rebeccas dad turns up to check progress.
Left to right: Scot, Tony, Rebecca and Brian. This was a very short extra 2 day course. We had to put on some extra dates because the course is so popular - We are now fully booked for 2008. Rebecca is our Rock Radio competition winner. Actually her dad won but decided he would give the prize to his daughter. Nice man....

Scott is doing very well. When the top is glued all he will have to do is bind the body before starting work on his neck which will be 3 piece laminate black american walnut.

More on Scot and Brian's guitar in the near future!

A lot of people are a bit nervous about carving their first neck - it's really not a problem. Mark demonstrates how this is acheived by carving facets then rounding them off and blending them in to get the perfect neck shape. You can choose how thin or chunky you want to make it. Tony was amazed at the results of his labours.

We were all on our best behaviour when David turned up. I think really he wanted to do the course himself but there was only one place. He came to help choose the wood and design at the start then had to go back to work.

This course will be continued in July.

 


Other News....

We are currently working toward making Bailey's the first guitar workshop to use only power generated by ourselves.

Solar Kettle

Bill's Windmill

Chickens - one dead. Bailey stand at the Minishant Fete

Mark had a spare 10 mins recently and built this out of scrap. It's an old satellite dish covered with reflective mylar supplied by Duffy after a clearout of his shed. On a sunny day it will boil water in about 10 mins! Put the kettle on then...........

We are currently trying to aquire a 1.2kw solartracking pv array...... watch this space........

This is the 3rd windmill to emerge from the workshop. It's only 4ft and put out about 100w in a good wind. We will be using it along with some solar panels at the Wickerman festival (end of July) to help generate enough power to build a guitar on site. We are currently working on windmill no.4 which will be up to 1kw and should supply a good percentage of the workshop power.

Unfortunately we are now down to 3 chickens after one popped its clogs during the last course.

It just keeled over. We reckon it was old age.

Farewell Wilma you will be remembered.

No we didn't eat it.

(Carol was quite upset but Dot, Freda & Wanda carried on eating... ah well..)

Our nearest village is Minishant. Here we are doing our bit.You can see the N0.3 windmill on top of Jamie's Van. and we displayed our guitars. No building this time but we used the wind power for an out- door amp to test the guitars.Mark and Carol played some songs on the stage, and Carol ran a "Minishant's Got Talent'' stage for budding perfomers. Big Ta to all that helped ..congrats to Bill, Duffy & Billy for managing to escape to the pub !

 


May BYO Course

Patrick and Mike are the only brothers we have had on the course which made for all sorts of jolly japes. Dave making an archtop and Paul a 'double cut' made up the full compliment with Scott popping in for a few days to work on his maccaferri.

Work in progress.....

Pad and Mike carve their necks

Paul sets his intonation Finished!
Left to right....Dave, Mark,Patrick, Mike, Paul. Dave is on the archtop course which takes approx 20 days. He has been on the last 4 or 5 courses scraping away in the corner and managed to get his body glued together - more about Dave's guitar soon.

Patrick, Mike and Paul were all making set neck electric guitars. We were joined for a couple of days by Scot who is making a Maccaferri style guitar (not pictured - next time!).

Coming to the crunch...will it play? Well it looks gorgeous thanks to Billy and his amazing spraying skills. Paul wanted a tobacco burst a carved top and a trem all in 5 days! Luckily the others were fairly simple guitars which helped make it possible.

3 brand new instruments fresh from the Bailey workshop.

 

Thanks to everyone involved - great people soup and guitars!


North West Guitar Show - Manchester 11th of May

The Bailey Stand always causes a bit of a stir.

Electrics

Archtops& Acoustics

Steve Lewis and his new S2 Who plays your guitar?
Like us NWGS is celebrating it's 10th anniversary year - the new 1 day show and venue were a great success. These shows are a good way to try or buy a Bailey guitar. Pictured are some of our electrics. Check here to find out where you can see us next.

The acoustic and Archtop side of the stand - Thanks to Chris Pritchet (CA008) for demoing the archtop for half a morning - sorry no pic! Also thanks to Paul Cairns (CA007)and Alex Munro (CJA001) for lending us their guitars for display.

Thanks Steve! He bought the first left handed version of the new S2 - made using only renewable energy. Steve (S2-31) is a working musician/ music therapist and we are delighted to welcome him to the growing number of Bailey players. www.deepcabaret.co.uk Our stand was opposite Patrick Eggle. It was great to see him as he was and still is a big inspiration to Mark - I asked him what he thought of the B1 he tried out . He said 'Lovely' - That made Mark's day.