Richard Leach Guitars

Buffalo Tom Progress report

2011-04-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

Gluing the head and tail block

Back braced and ready for trimming

Gluing the kerfing

Top bracing

Starting to look like a guitar !

Buffalo Tom's Guitar

2011-03-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

First you have to make a template

Then you need a bending form for the sides

and a frame to hold the sides square

Here is pic of the back. This is Claro walnut from Northern California.

And then we bend the sides !

Buffalo Tommy Reno gets a new guitar

2011-03-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

Here is Buffalo Tommy Reno, a true renaissance man ! He's a philosopher, musician, poet, humorist, cowboy and FORMER ladies man . His beautiful gal, Sacred Woman sent me some money to make a nice guitar for him ( Ladies take note the true way to mans heart is with a guitar and I can help.)
Buffalo Tom and I got together and started to design this new guitar and since it was a shape that I don't normally make I thought I would post the process for every one to watch.

2010-03-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

The sides on an acoustic guitar are particularily vunerable to impact damage as you can see on this Martin D 28

'll pay close attention tom getting the cracks lined up just perfect, and add lots of clamps.

Good as new !

2010-03-10T14:56:00.000-08:00

I fix a lot of broken headstocks. Sometimes when the break is bad we have to fortify it with some inserts.

Turns out pretty good !

2010-03-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

This an old Gibson with a bad top crack.The cross brace let loose and the pressure of the strings pushed the top into the sound hole.

The bridge was coming off.

and the tuner buttons had had dried up and most were completely gone

With a little TLC we got everything back to where it should be and kept it original. a happy customer.

2010-03-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

So I got a template ( I must have a hundred different ones) and figured out where to put the access for the battery, got the router and....

All Done.

2010-03-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

Here we wanted to put some EMG pickups in, but the battery would fit in the control cavity.

2010-03-10T14:14:00.001-08:00

Just about done with my new CNC router

2010-02-27T07:11:00.000-08:00

Paul Campbell inspired me so I decide to build my own CNC router. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with it, but that has never stopped me before.

2010-02-27T07:06:00.000-08:00

I caught Mike by surprise !

We have been friends for 30 years and it would take me that long to tell you how much of a truly great human being he is . Mike's got a repair shop in St Cloud and there are few better than he is for fixing amps and such. He is a wizard with tube amps. http://www.miketechmusic.com/

2010-02-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

Those large cracks are barely visible and this old girl is ready to go again.

2010-02-21T12:20:00.001-08:00

I wish I'd gotten a little better pic....it turned out real nice and most important the customer was over-joyed !

2010-02-21T12:18:00.000-08:00

Because we were going to refret the fingerboard , we decided to inlay his name in MOP.

HANDSOME !

2010-02-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

Tape off the binding for the first stage of touch up.

2010-02-21T12:13:00.000-08:00

There was no saving the old binding so we replaced it.We'll touch up the edge and "yellow" the binding some to make it look right.

2010-02-21T12:11:00.000-08:00

Lots of clamps. These are a bugger because the sides "relax" when you take the back off and it's hard to get them match perfectly.

2010-02-21T12:06:00.001-08:00

Lots of patching

2010-02-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

This was a mess. I didn't get any pics of it before I started but it was in quite a few pieces.

2010-01-24T11:40:00.000-08:00

John brought this over and wanted a guitar . I was a little unsure of how it might work but he had a vision....well when a guy and a good friend has a vision want are you going to do ?

So we routed the neck and pickup cavities.

And the controls.

Found some maple pickup covers and boxwood knobs that matched ....and by God we had a guitar

2010-01-20T18:16:00.000-08:00

This is my "mate" Paul Campbell.
This guy is a GENIUS!! He 's got a metal/woodworking CNC set up to die for.
He's got a great web page , www.makecnc.com
if you like to work wood or metal they've got some very affordable machines you can build yourself and lots of videos and books. And he's in our backyard !!!!
He's also got a top self recording studio with all the toys. He knows the business and is a great guy on top of it .

2010-01-07T18:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a chambered tele body I'm working on.
Don't have any pics of the finished guitar, but the tone was a little more balanced than a standard solid body.

2010-01-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

You've got your favorite guitar and it's outlasted several girlfriends but one morning you open the case and........!!!!!!!!

This neck is held on by five dowels, not my favorite way to do this. I don't believe that using dowels or bolts is the best for the tone of a guitar .I like the traditional method of using a tapered dovetail.

Back in the saddle!

2010-01-03T10:01:00.000-08:00

My good friend Dan Ratliff stopped by. He makes some very nice ukeleles, check his website,
www.ratliffukulele.com
He's pickier than hell and I have to thank him for raising the bar.

2009-12-28T06:53:00.000-08:00

Ouch !!

Much better !!

2009-12-27T20:49:00.000-08:00

Just got a nice load of beautiful African mahogany !